Pauline Chalamet on Her Love for Both Sides of the Camera
Actress, screenwriter, and musician, at 29, Chalamet is what one might call an accomplished artist. Between childhood memories and a career on the big screen, she invites us to preview a life rocked by the seventh art.
A family resemblance and a crazy talent for acting, Pauline, sister of actor Timothée Chalamet, promises to seduce all of Hollywood. Growing up between Broadway and the television studios of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, she made her first film appearance at just seven years old in the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. It's in the footsteps of her mother Nicole Flender, a Broadway dancer turned real estate agent, that the young woman also burned the stages of the New York City Ballet and the American Ballet Theater from an early age.
Passionate about cinema, she quickly realized that what she lacked on a stage is "to speak," so she decides—after finishing school—to produce, direct, write, and act in several short and feature films. In 2016, Pauline started directing with her short film, Between Fear and Laughter. In 2018, she presented Bernard-Marie Koltès's play Sallinger at the Studio Théâtre d'Asnières. From 2017 to 2020, she starred in eight other short films.
On social networks, the young woman shows her commitment to the causes that are close to her heart, invites her followers to vote in elections, and even sings in her spare time. Her light personality and her passion for the arts have allowed the young woman to become a versatile actress. Recently seen alongside Pete Davidson in the American comedy-drama The King of Staten Island, and in Canines, a horror short film directed by French filmmaker Abel Danan, the young Franco-American now juggles work in both the U.S. and France. Her next big project is a major role in the new HBO Max series The Sex Lives Of College Girls created by Mindy Kaling.
Between two photoshoots, she confided in her long-time friend, the Parisian photographer, Frédéric Monceau. When he's not between running fashion shows, Frédéric Monceau writes and photographs for the international editions of L'OFFICIEL. While speaking to her friend, the actress opened up about her childhood, career, and passion for music.
Frédéric Monceau: Did Pauline Chalamet as a child imagine the woman she is today?
Pauline Chalamet: As a child, I always wanted to be truly independent—absolute independence. I think I imagined this independence. When I was 14, I would fall asleep thinking that at 23 I was going to get married, and that my first child would be when I was 24 or 25 and that I was going to have all my children before the age of 30. So there, I was a little wrong (laughs). But on the other hand, where life has led me, I did not imagine it at all.
FM: Being an actress is a job that you've always dreamed of. What would you have wanted to be if you hadn't taken this path?
PC: I think so, I've always wanted to be an actress, but I've been down a lot of different paths. At first, it was dancing. Until I was 14, I sincerely thought I was going to be a dancer. I loved being on a stage but what I lacked was to speak (laugh). But when I was in high school or even in college, every day I would come to school and I wanted to do a few different things: I wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to work for the United Nations like my father, a journalist. Like my father, I wanted to be an environmental engineer. I wanted to start an NGO. It was really something different each time, and my friends often made fun of me. If I hadn't taken this route, I think I would have taken it anyway (laughs).
FM: As a committed woman, who would you like to play in a biopic?
PC: Alice Guy or Alice Guy Blaché, the first female filmmaker. It is said that she was the first person in the world to have written fiction, short stories (after the Light Brothers). She made a lot of short films and besides that, she came to settle in the United States, in New Jersey, in Fort Lee when all the studios were there, in the 19th century. I would love to be her. I think she had a life. She had to fight a lot and she's just someone really impressive. She was also a filmmaker. If not her, I am also thinking of the American militant activist Francis Seward. She had really "progressive" ideas for her time.
FM: Do you prefer to be in front of or behind the camera?
PC: I love both and I admire both. When I am behind the camera, whether as a director or a producer and I see the work that the actors do, I always have a little voice in me that says to me: The work of an actor is just extraordinary. Comedians, they are sick—why show themselves so vulnerable? Why put themselves in all these states? Why, just to tell a story, just to tell this story?
When I act and I see what the director and the production are doing, I am so impressed by their work. I say to myself: Oh my, the organization, the vision, power, knowing how to lead. Clearly, the directors, the producers, the writers, and the screenwriters are the most difficult and the most trying jobs there are, so I admire, I adore, and I am in love with both sides of the camera.
FM: Where does your passion for music come from?
PC: It came to me from my childhood and probably started with musicals. Because in fact, when you go to see a musical, there are the scenes that are acted and then, it's like there's a point when acting and speaking are no longer enough and you have to go through singing to communicate with the person in front, and that, I liked. That was a bit of my discovery of music. Also, my father adored Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens a lot. He often turned on the music, I liked to see my father sing. Then, there is the dance of course. I know the times when I blossomed the most in dancing were the times when there was an amazing pianist so connected with music that I felt like I was traveling in music. And, little by little, I think I found how the music calmed me or amplified the sensations. This passion has always been there and then it followed me, and then I always played. I took piano lessons when I was little. I take enormous pleasure in making and listening to music because it relaxes me.
FM: Do you ever think of combining all your talents in the same movie? Maybe in a musical?
PC: Yes why not, a musical, that would be great! Me, I have only one expectation, and that is for the theaters to reopen. I miss everything in the theater. Acting in a musical or a filmed musical— why not?
FM: What are the future projects you are working on?
PC: I have a short film in mind that I have to manage to write. I have to stop saying that I have a short film in mind, but by way of saying it maybe I'll force myself to write it.
FM: When will we see movie shorts together?
PC: Let's talk, let's talk, let's talk (laughs).
