Draw a Frenchman from memory and you will find you’ve drawn Louis Garrel. There’s that tousled hair and heavy brow. The aquiline nose you could use to crack open a beer bottle. The exact kind of jawline that people print off the internet, stare at resentfully and then take to their plastic surgeon. In films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s lusty drama The Dreamers and Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, where he was Saoirse Ronan’s sophisticated love interest Professor Bhaer, Garrel is a portrait of chic, European handsomeness. In conversation, though, he is quick to tell you that he’s a bit of a mess.
“I am the most anxious French guy you can meet,” the 40-year-old squirms. “Believe me, I want to be more brave than I am. I am… what do you say? Effrayé they say in French… a scared guy.” Take Little Women, he says. “I was super stressed because I knew that all of the actors in it were better than me. Obviously Florence [Pugh], Saoirse, Timothée [Chalamet]…” He says the latter in about five syllables, somehow finding whole new levels of French to a name already spelt like “Timothée”. “But then it does work out sometimes,” he continues. “I find you know early – like the first or second day of shooting – if you’re going to be good.” His voice deepens. “Or not so good.”
