CREATOR LABS
August 3, 2020
I Just Wanna Be by Vanessa Rondón
November 19, 2020
COVER: Red shirt and high waist pleated pants, MSGM – printed leopard leather cuffs and choker with a black leather harness, ZANA BAYNE
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW AND FASHION SHOOT
JULIEN LANDAIS “The Darkness of Romanticism” – we are thrilled to collaborate with huge talent, actor and director Julien Landais. We have met with Julien in a cosy Parisian café in the 7th district, to chat about his experiences both behind and in front of the camera, his new project with the famous actor Gerard Depardieu and also about the very daring photoshoot Julien did for artPLAY, by fashion photographer Justino Esteves, styled by the wonderful Céline Bourreau.
Starring actor and director: Julien Landais @julienlandais
Photographer: Justino Estives @justinoesteves https://justinoesteves.wixsite.com/portfolio
Stylist: Céline Bourreau @celine.bourreau
Interview: Katja Kat @katjakatphotos
Special thanks to : Krash Bar, La Mine Bar @la_mine_bar, Boxxman @boxxman_officiel, Studio M Factory @studiomfactory
Rafia straw hat, BENOÎT MISSOLIN Jean harness and chains, DAVIDE BAZZERLA
artPLAY: Let’s start by discovering some of your past inspirations and projects including your latest movie “The Aspern Papers”.
Julien: Yes I have recently released a feature film “The Aspern Papers”, adapted from the author Henry James and set in the mysterious Venus of the 19th century, with leading roles by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, legendary Vanessa Redgrave and her daughter Joely Richardson. I have always been fascinated by the darkness of romanticism in Venice and also by the repressed sexual emotions that are underlying Henry James’s work. I feel very blessed working with those extraordinary actors.
I love the darkness of vampires, one of my favorite films is “ Interview with a Vampire” by Neil Jordan. Also “The Piano” by Jane Campion; this passionate music, composed by Michael Nyman, the beauty, the violence, the sexual power in this film. This is what inspired me to do films in the first place.
“If I didn’t choose to be an actor I would follow my other passion I would be a pianist, I can easily imagine myself being a pianist in the 19 century”
artPLAY: What is closer to your heart though to be an actor or to actually direct?
Julien: Oh, I love both, I love to incarnate but I also love to be in control and create some great stories. Being an actor, you depend on other people’s desires. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but once a very good friend of mine actress and director has told me that being an actor is actually being a “prostitute” (laughs) which was the case a few hundred years ago, I mean in a way that you don’t have control you depend on seducing other people. But everyone loves to be desired in a way too….
I love literature, I love psychology, I love art and I love to create worlds. I have always dreamt to live in different times, in the past or the future, so I can understand better human nature, and its mysteries, its darkness. It has to do with the sexuality as well. For example when I visit Versailles I see there were parts of it created so people could have sex in “The Bosquets” which were private places. Louis XIV created Versailles and its a vast garden so he could throw parties and control the rioting aristocracy he had witnessed in his childhood, to indulge them with entertainment and then to, in a way, enslave them with the Etiquette. That’s how he created all these ceremonies for the aristocracy, it was all about submission. These gardens were made for entertainment, grandeur and sex.
That’s also why I have shot my short film “Masque d’Or” (The Golden Mask) in Versailles. My company’s emblem is a Fleur-de-Lis the tri-petal symbol of the kings of France. Did you know they also used to iron stamp murderers and prostitutes with this symbol of the Fleur-de-Lis.
artPLAY: You are now working on new, exciting projects, talk to us more about what near future holds for you.
Julien: My future plans are to direct and also act in the next movie I’m working on, based on the three books “Sodom and Gomorrah”, “The Prisoner” and “Time Regained” by the very famous French author Marcel Proust. The movie will focus on two love stories, the first between the narrator who happens to be an impotent voyeur, obsessive and also frustrated and who’s in love with a young lesbian girl. I am playing his best friend, Robert de Saint Loup, an aristocrat, who is officially straight but, who also sleeps with men. Then there will be the other love story with Baron de Charlus an opulent, decadent, brutal but very refined aristocrat; he falls in love with a young violinist who uses him to succeed. The baron will be played by the one and only Gérard Depardieu.
I’ll show the grandeur of the Belle Epoch until its decay : the Great War when everything crumbles down, which I’ll transpose to our world : the Golden Age of the 2000s, which unravels in the dark 2020s. The sexual decadence, the beauty and the sexual openness of Proust’s work are very similar to the times we’re living in.
In his novels Proust is describing all kinds of sexuality, even fetishes. There is this gay scene where Baron de Charlus gets chained and whipped and the narrator is the voyeur, it was so innovative for his times and it’s all in the book, nothing like that has been ever published before.
“For me the past can be the mirror of our present and our future too”
artPLAY: So this movie will be a combination of the classics and some of modern issues as well, the theme is very, very current. When do you plan to start shooting.
Julien: We were supposed to start shooting next June but due to current pandemic circumstances we have to adapt.
artPLAY: You did a photoshoot for us with the incredible fashion photographer Justino Esteves. This shoot had a darker mood with some fetish undertones, we want to know more about this dark side of yours and how fetish influences your fashion.
Julien: We all have a dark side. When I was a teenager I loved to paint my nails black, I loved cathedrals and visited cemeteries with my mother. There is something sacred and Godly in darkness. So for the shoot we played with this concept of light and darkness, submission and domination.
When I used to work for Jean Paul Gaultier and Jean-Baptiste Mondino for one of their campaigns, they made me wear feminine clothes at a time when no one was doing that, but I just went for it. I am very comfortable in my skin, I usually just say let’s go and then see how it turns out.
“I love Robert Mapplethorpe and Madonna by Steven Meisel, you can create art with elements of sexuality or fetish or bondage”
artPLAY: Those images you did for artPLAY reflect the mood of your future movie that we talked about, where there is light there is darkness kind of mood. So we are happy to reveal this little bit more different, daring, a darker side to you.
Julien: The location of our shoot was also special, it was shot in the sex clubs in the Parisian district Le Marais, and there was even a cage inside, we loved the atmosphere. In my film adapted from Henry James I filmed the fantasies of the character, where the character sees his dark twin, he sees his double who stabs him and he fantasies about sleeping with himself, it’s a metaphor for finding yourself. It’s a narcissistic thing, when in love we project ourselves onto others. I have explored this kind idea to the full in my past films. There is always this narcissistic note and this dark note. Isn’t it all an exciting game in the end?
LEFT: Dark yellow tartan shirt, latex sleeveless jacket, latex pant, ARTHUR AVELLANO RIGHT: Black fishnet top, MARTA MARTINO – blue tartan hat, ANTHONY PETO – silver ring, MARC DELOCHE – printed pants, EAGONLab
Tricolour sleeveless leather jacket with feathers and silver nails, CHRISTOPHE TERZIAN
LEFT: Black leather perfecto jacket with silver nails, EGONLab – silver rose and leather choker, ZANA BAYNE RIGHT: Black fishnet top, MARTA MARTINO – blue tartan hat, ANTHONY PETO – silver ring, MARC DELOCHE – printed pants, EAGONLab
Rafia straw hat, BENOÎT MISSOLIN
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