PARIS — Few actresses end up being tapped, midmovie, to help with the soundtrack for the film they’re working on. But when director Julian Schnabel heard Emmanuelle Seigner’s husky, Nico-esque song, “Don’t Kiss Me Goodbye,” between takes, he immediately called sound-whiz Roger Moutenot from Nashville and added the track by his lead actress to the score of “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.”
The flick, complete with Seigner’s song, will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22.
“I’ve always attended the festival as a ‘wife of’ [Roman Polanski] and have never had a movie there in competition, so it’s rather thrilling,” says Seigner.
And with a debut album — a collaboration with French rock group Ultra Orange — freshly in the bag, the actress is also busy adjusting to her latest role as an accidental rock star.
“It’s a bit like a kid who starts playing with fire and suddenly the whole house is up in flames,” she says, curled up on a sofa in Hotel Plaza Athénée’s tearoom on a piping hot day. It was in one of the rooms above that Seigner recorded three songs from the group’s just-released album, “Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle.”
Though she and bandmates Pierre Emery and Gil Lesage worked nomadically over two years, they didn’t fully endorse the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.
“I’m not into trashing places — or drink and drugs for that matter,” says Seigner, who, at worst, might raise a few eyebrows for trotting downstairs barefoot in her beach shorts to get more tea. It’s part of an easy look she’s honed with the band’s guitarist, Lesage, a stylist by profession, who met Seigner on the set of the movie “Backstage.”
“I like the idea of maybe performing in something I would wear to the beach; keeping it easy with natural makeup,” muses Seigner, peeking out from under her heavy blonde fringe.
The band already has a stream of France-based concerts kicking off in June. Seigner’s hefty fashion credits, having starred in campaigns for the likes of Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs, and, coming this fall, Celine and Moschino, have meant the fashion crowd has also come sniffing, notably Jean-Baptiste Mondino. The French photographer, who has directed videos for David Bowie, Madonna and Björk, asked to shoot four music videos for Seigner in one day.
Related Articles
You May Also Like
“Mondino likes to play in life, but when he works, he works,” says Seigner, whom he asked to act like a “drugged-up animal” in the video for the track “Sing Sing.”
Meanwhile, her family is finding the whole thing bags of fun, she says. “My husband loves the idea of me fronting a rock band,” says Seigner, grinning at the idea of maybe one day filling stadiums. “For now, I’m taking it one step at a time.”