Her Perfect Role? Well, C’est la Vie

If love is a leap of faith, jumping into the deep end of too many bad romances can drive a girl to the edge. In Patrice Leconte’s “Girl on the Bridge,” Adele (Vanessa Paradis) stands on a footbridge near the Eiffel Tower, toes pointed toward oblivion. As she looks, bewildered, at the silky black waves of the Seine, Gabor (Daniel Auteuil) appears in the darkness, a mid-career knife-thrower in need of some inspiration.

You seem like a girl who’s about to make a mistake, he tells her. It’s a line he’s used before to talk a desperate girl down from the high wire and coax her into being his next target.

“This girl can seem like the dumbest girl in the world, a slut that sleeps with everybody and believes everything anybody tells her,” says Paradis, her sweet voice high with emotion. “But she’s not that at all. She’s the purest person I’ve ever met. Children are pure like that--but once you reach the age of 5 it’s all over.”

Paradis is drinking espresso and smoking rolled cigarettes at her parents’ restaurant, a converted 17th century paper mill an hour outside of Paris. She’s draped in layers of red and black over baggy army-green pants, the roots showing on her messy middle-parted blond-brown hair; like most off-duty actresses, she isn’t wearing any makeup.

Adele might not take his line right to heart, but in Leconte’s 90-minute, black-and-white exploration of desire, luck, trust and illusion--the Paramount Classics release opened in Los Angeles on Friday--she and Gabor explore the very romantic notion that we are all half of a torn dollar bill, worthless without the other part. “I think it’s totally true for me,” the 28-year-old Paradis says, light flooding her giant green eyes. Has it always been true? “No, I think it’s only been true one time and it will never be again.”

It is understood who she is talking about, even if the name is never mentioned; if in France Paradis is a well-known teen singer turned actress, in the U.S. she is best known for being the wife of Johnny Depp and the mother of his 1-year-old daughter.

“You might have beautiful things in you, but if nobody’s there to make you think you’re worth it and you’re beautiful and smart and funny, then those things are just underneath the clouds,” she says. “That person makes you want to give those things and those things come out of you and it makes you a shining person.”

Written With Paradis in Mind

Paradis has grown up in the public eye, a process that has been as painful as it has been fruitful. When she first burst onto the French pop scene with her 1987 hit “Joe Le Taxi” at age 14, the public said she was well-connected but talentless--her uncle is a widely known agent in France. The girls at school shunned her, one famously spitting in her face. In 1989, she won the best newcomer Cesar (the French version of the Oscar) for her performance in “Noce Blanche.”

But she has only made five films since, working alongside such actors as Gerard Depardieu in “Elisa” (1995); Jeanne Moreau in the forgettable 1997 film “Un Amour de Sorciere”; and the 1998 action film “Une Chance Sur Deux,” a vehicle for Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo, also directed by Leconte.

Leconte (“Ridicule,” “Monsieur Hire,” “The Hairdresser’s Husband”) talked the story of “Girl on the Bridge” through with scriptwriter Serge Frydman for weeks. And they always had Paradis in mind for the role. “When I was talking to [Frydman] a year before we shot the movie,” says Paradis, “he was talking about her being a sad girl--you know maybe how I was in my life a lot before. Maybe that’s how he saw me. When the movie finished, he said, ‘I never thought she was that radiant and happy. I’m really glad you turned her into this.’

“And I said, ‘I didn’t--it just happen.’ I was living the movie and I was so happy to be in it and I just let it happen and I didn’t control very much.”

But Leconte says it was her ability to embody joyous and poignant qualities all at once that made her perfect for the role.

“If she hadn’t been able to make the film for some reason, we wouldn’t have made it,” Leconte says. “We wrote it for her. Sure there are others in France and elsewhere with lots of talent. But she’s more than an actress. . . . She’s got this kind of infinite grace and she seems very fragile, but she is the opposite of fragility. And this kind of person is extremely moving for a director to work with.”

Leconte worked the camera himself. “It is amazing for the actor, because he’s right there in the scene; he’s taking as much risk as you,” Paradis says. “He’s into it more than if he was sitting in the chair. Basically it was Daniel and I and Patrice, so it was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. This role was such a gift for an actress because it was so poetic, so touching, so funny, so sad, a lot of things together, but it was not put together at all like a cliche.”

“Girl on the Bridge” was shot in the late summer and fall of 1998, from Paris to Athens to Istanbul and back on a $7-million budget. Last year, it was nominated for eight Cesar awards and won best actor for Auteuil. Paradis says that she loves talking about the film--it is hard to interrupt her once she gets going; she is surprisingly frank in her assessments of herself and her acting and singing careers. She’s especially eager to reassure American audiences, who might not realize that a black-and-white French film with dramatic themes could have such a light and entertaining heart.

‘It’s So Rare to See Good Movies’

“At one point I was like, ‘It’s a French black-and-white movie that’s going to come out in two cinemas in all of America--why do I bother to give time to give interviews?’ Then I thought: ‘What the hell. Even if 3 1/2 people see the movie, then they’ll tell it to their friends.’ It’s so rare to see good movies. There are so many funny lines, so many beautiful poetic images, so much emotion. Everything that happens I believe. It’s a perfect movie, although some people thought it had too much of a happy end.”

In mid-September, she will begin shooting a small role in Terry Gilliam’s upcoming film about Don Quixote, starring Depp. “It was almost impossible for me to say no,” she says. “The main reason is because my boyfriend is in it . . .the perfect opportunity to be together, the three of us. The second reason is that it’s a really good script . . . and Jean Rochefort is also starring in it.”

Paradis says that while press reports that she is seven months pregnant are untrue, she would like to have another baby. She’s says she’s challenged by trying to balance her family, and film and musical career. At this time, she is particularly anxious about the debut of her new album in October and an upcoming tour. Her music, which started off in a light, pop mode with “Joe Le Taxi,” has moved to a more bluesy style.

“Movies are more like relaxation for me,” she says. “Other actors jump at me when I say that. But the pressure is way different when you do music; when you do a movie the pressure’s on the director. You try and be as good as you can. I don’t think I’ll ever be Jeanne Moreau one day. I’m not in love with my work and I’m not in love with my music. But I’m sincere with it.

“When I sing if I think about it I don’t like my voice. I’d rather have a low, scratchy voice. But I love the sensation of singing. It’s like if you dance you don’t necessarily love the way you dance, but dancing feels so good. Nobody is ever satisfied with themselves, and when they are, they are terrible people.”