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"  Photo: Courtesy of Adopt Films Hitting theaters today is Vanessa Paradis&amp;#039;s latest film, Caf\u00E9 de Flore, in which she plays a single mother in 1969 Paris, who struggles to protect her son with Down syndrome. The decade-spanning, French-Canadian drama juxtaposes two unlikely stories and spotlights Paradis as Jacqueline. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s tough, rough\u2014even violent sometimes\u2014almost like a solider,&amp;quot; the French singer, actress, and model told ELLE.com about her character. &amp;quot;But it all comes from a good heart. She&amp;#039;s a mother before, after, and beyond anything else.&amp;quot; Known to the American public for her dating record\u2014which includes relationships with Johnny Depp and Lenny Kravitz\u2014Paradis has an impressive music, film, and fashion resum\u00E9 as well. She scored global attention for her single &amp;quot;Joe le Taxi&amp;quot; at age fourteen, recorded five albums, starred in a number of foreign films, and won a C\u00E9sar Award (the French Oscar) and a Genie Award (the Canadian Oscar). Next year, she&amp;#039;ll make her American film debut starring opposite Woody Allen in Fading Gigolo. ELLE.com met up with Paradis to discuss her current filming situation in New York, how she got into character as Jacqueline, and her one true &amp;#039;like&amp;#039; in life. ELLE: You&amp;#039;re currently filming Fading Gigolo in New York. How is that going? Vanessa Paradis: I used to live here long ago\u201420 years ago\u2014and being back and working here is an amazing feeling\u2026[In the film], I play a Hasidic widow. I have all kinds of special outfits\u2014long skirts and wigs\u2014and, boy, I get to say my lines to Woody Allen in New York. That&amp;#039;s pretty awesome. ELLE: What was your first Woody Allen film? VP: Annie Hall.  ELLE: How do you first approach a role? VP: The first way in is to find out what the director has in mind. It&amp;#039;s great to bring your ideas, but it&amp;#039;s also important for me to get out of my head and get into some else&amp;#039;s ideas. To become Jacqueline, specifically, [director] Jean-Marc Vall\u00E9e and I spent a lot of time talking about the look of her, the voice of her, and her body language. I had to erase a lot of my natural maternal insights and tenderness that I have, [because] Jacqueline was not going to be any of that. ELLE: Everyone seems to comment on your look\u2014that you&amp;#039;re not glamorous in this film\u2014does that surprise you? VP: It&amp;#039;s weird. They&amp;#039;ve been to movies before, right? That&amp;#039;s what actors do. If you&amp;#039;re going to play a character who has a deformed face, you should have a deformed face. This woman that I&amp;#039;m playing is completely out of seduction and taking care of herself, and she has no money. That&amp;#039;s what we wanted to show. This woman does not care about being alive, except for her son. So, it wouldn&amp;#039;t have made sense to have her be like Jessica Rabbit. ELLE: Is there another era you&amp;#039;d like explore in film? VP: Yes, I&amp;#039;d love to be in a 1910s film\u2014the era between the corsets and losing the corsets. ELLE: Which job\u2014musician, model, actress\u2014do you like best? VP: I really like them all, but the one that is closest to me is the music. It&amp;#039;s something that&amp;#039;s closer to my world, my heart, my dreams, and my escapes. With movies, it&amp;#039;s getting into someone else&amp;#039;s world, but doing a record is a personal project. If I&amp;#039;d have to choose one, I&amp;#039;d choose music, but I&amp;#039;d like to keep doing them all. ELLE: What is your definition of motherhood? VP: Once you&amp;#039;re a mom, whether you&amp;#039;re kids are next to you or far away from you, you&amp;#039;re always a mom. My job makes me travel a lot and too often I&amp;#039;m away from my children, but I don&amp;#039;t ever stop being a mom inside my head and my heart. There is no higher love than that.  Photo: Courtesy of Adopt Films  Photo: Courtesy of Adopt Films  Photo: Courtesy of Adopt Films "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/news/a22445/vanessa-paradis-interview/>