Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu Bares it All
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu Bares it All
photography TYLER PATRICK KENNY production STEPHANIE AROUESTY coordination SOFÍA ZUCKERMANN & ALEXIS TAME art direction PAULA PRIETO interview NATALIE ROTERMAN styling CLÉMENT LOMELLINI make up FRED MARIN for CALL MY AGENT hair KAZUE for CALLISTE AGENCY nails NAFISSA DJABI photography assistant LISA TORIO production assistant PAULINA TORRE styling assistant ALICE GIBERT location JK PLACE, PARIS
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, has two moments she enjoys immensely with her character Sylvie from “Emily in Paris”: playing her and leaving her on set. The Italian-French actress says that not only are they completely different, but that carrying her “is heavy.”
Leroy-Beaulieu was born and raised in Rome until she was 11, when they moved to Paris. Her parents—the actor Philippine Leroy and the model Françoise Laurent, who worked at the French house Dior as a designer for 20 years—were clear proof that creative work was part of her DNA. The actress followed that path, and today Philippine continues to evolve along with her career, with the opportunity to work on a show by Darren Star (creator of Beverly Hills 90210 and Sex and the City, among others) and to challenge all age-related stereotypes—something she never thought about until now, since she gets asked about it so often.
“All these women have a lot of freedom, but also a great emptiness they are trying to fill without success,” the actress says. Just three minutes of conversation with her are enough to know that this is far from her own case. Leroy-Beaulieu: light, clear, and firm about what she wants and thinks; a woman comfortable in her own skin—that is Philippine.
L’BEAUTÉ Did you always want to be an actor?
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu No, I think I started by wanting to be a dancer when I was a very, very young girl, because I was taking ballet classes, and I really loved it, and I remember seeing this ballerina, this Italian ballerina on television when I was six, and I said, I want to be a dancer.
You moved to Paris (from Italy) at 11 years old. What part of you will always be Italian?
I’m not sure. I think it’s more what other people see than what I see, because when you come to Paris, you don’t know what really makes you different from other people, but Italian culture is in me, in my blood, so I have this mixture of Italian and French, I move my hands a lot, and probably I have more of a sense of humor than the French. I’m also probably lighter with life, because Italians enjoy more what they have, the French worry a lot and can be very grumpy. Sometimes I catch myself doing that, and I just go, “no, no, no, go back to your Italian side”. I guess it’s about loving life.
Your parents were very artistic, do you think you always had that in your DNA?
Yeah. I think I was never going to do a job that didn’t require my imagination, my free thinking and the possibility to have a vision. I never really wanted to be anybody’s employee. It’s about this freedom of thought that you have when you’re an artist; it allows you a lot, and I never thought I could do something else. My imagination runs wild and I’m always observing people; I know exactly who they are, I know what their life is like. I started people watching when I was really young at restaurants. I remember having lunch with my parents and my parents’ friends and always listening to people at the tables next us talking and I used to imagine what their life was like, what their house was like; it’s something that I really love to do even now. I love to look at people and think, “okay, they must live in a place like that, they must have this and that, and they must have this kind of story”. I just love imagining people’s stories and the richness of humanity. And as an actor it is fantastic to have fun with that.
How did your role as Sylvie in “Emily in Paris” come to be? What was the first approach?
The casting director gave me some scenes to read as an actor to cast for the show. Pretty standard. And I obviously knew who Darren Star was, but I never thought about working in a Darren Star show. I never thought it would happen anyway. It’s the kind of thing you don’t dream about if it’s too far away from you. And also, I have to admit, I didn’t watch Sex and the City until like 2010, and of course, I loved it. What was funny, was that, when I read the lines or scenes that I was given, I really felt like I knew her, I knew this character. It was really interesting. She was supposed to be much younger than me, she was to be like 40, 35, but for some reason, the casting director wanted me to read for that, and I felt like I did recognize myself in her, so we did it. Then I waited for like two months before I got any news, and I thought it wasn’t going to work, because they had envisioned a different character with a different age. I always forget, you read, you do meetings with people, you read, and then you’re better off forgetting about what you just did, because otherwise you suffer too much; it’s complicated. So I had forgotten about it, and then I was called back to do a final test with Darren, and that’s how it happened in a very, very normal way.
And how similar are you to Sylvie and what would you say she’s taught you about yourself?
I’m not similar to her at all. She’s much more wounded and scared of life or scared of losing her position, because she’s one of these women that I met a lot of when I was younger, who have fought so hard for their jobs and to get the place they’re in, that they’re scared of a younger person coming in and taking it. So she has that kind of vibe. She’s much more anxious than me, much snobbier than me and she can be really blunt, and not nice, and I always try to be nice. So, no, we, I don’t think we have much in common, and that’s the beauty of it; it’s fun to do, because she’s not who I am at all.
On the other hand, she’s a fighter, which is a good thing and she taught me that I could also fight and that I’m a good fighter too. She also showed me that I am brave; I didn’t think I was that brave, and she made me realize that I am. She’s a very interesting person to work with, but I’m also very happy when I leave her, because she’s also very heavy to carry.
You’ve talked about how, in this show, people–women especially–find a lot of freedom, and have so many lovers, and they can do so much, but they end up finding themselves in solitude. Can you elaborate?
Yeah, I think so, I think Darren’s vision is a man’s vision, so obviously the sexual impulses are more those of a man than a woman. We can see that in the show very clearly, and also there’s a lot of truth in the fact that somebody who’s not fulfilled–which is very interesting to play in a character–they’re chasing something, and it can be success, but they’re also chasing satisfaction, and you can see that there’s a void that they need to fill. Both Emily and Sylvie don’t have children, both Emily and Sylvie have families that we don’t know much about, except Sylvie’s mother, but they obviously have family issues that they’re trying to cope with too. It’s very, very contemporary. I think when we watch this show in a few years, we’re going to realize that this was a very good snapshot of the period that we’re going through as a society, actually, even though it looks like it’s just entertainment, but it does say a lot about what our society is navigating.
What does age and aging mean to you? How is your life better now?
Age is something I never thought about until I did “Emily in Paris” and now everybody’s asking me about it. I never thought about it, and I’m also a bit tired of talking about it, because my way of dealing with it is just to embrace whatever’s coming. Life is about transformation, we’re always transforming, we’re changing every day and it has nothing to do with age, it has to do with experiences that sometimes happen when we are 30 or 20 or 70. I’m a very curious person, so I’m always looking to get out of my comfort zone and try different things, which takes courage, but it’s fun. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Either you fail or nothing really happens. I always tell others to try stuff you wouldn’t expect to do and to never think you owe others your existence; it’s something that we fall prey to. We enslave ourselves to other people’s reality, or way of looking at us and it keeps us from thriving, and also being who we want to be: ourselves!
I always feel that a lot of the frustrations, envy and all these really dark feelings that we can have toward each other, come from the fact that we don’t allow ourselves to have the experiences we want to have. I just think anything can happen, and that’s super interesting, so age really is just a number. I don’t care about it, I really don’t. I’ve always been like that, I’ve always been in a research with myself and with life, trying to have all these experiences outside of my comfort zone, and letting myself just be rocked around by life, sometimes in really rough ways, but that has brought out all my courage, strength, determination, and all my stubbornness. My plan is to keep experiencing life and never have a fixed opinion about the big truths; life, death, love, those obviously don’t move, but everything else can. Even problems, sometimes if you look at them in a different way, it becomes fun to solve them.
I have to ask, what is your best beauty hack?
My best beauty hack is sleeping a lot. I’m fanatical with sleep. It’s, no, you’re right. I can go to bed at 9 at night. It’s so anti-inflammatory for the body and keeps you away from diseases. People don’t get enough sleep nowadays, because we’re all on our computers, our screens, etc… and I understand, it’s fun, but it’s not good. Get some sleep!
What is your spirit animal?
My spirit animal is what they call in South America, the Yanapuma. It’s a big cat, like a Puma, but it’s a black. It came to me in a dream, so it was clear that that was it.
