Interview

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There is little question that Lou Doillon comes from French royalty. Her father is the director Jacques Doillon; her mother is the model, musician, and movie star Jane Birkin; and her half sister is the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg. But this may be the last time a family tree is needed to introduce the 25-year-old Doillon to American shores. Clearly gifted with great beauty, Doillon also happens to be remarkably talented. She has already gone through the model-and-muse track and has increasingly appeared in films and onstage. (Last year she read love letters in a touring one-woman show entitled Lettres Intimes, and she is set to act in the Samuel Beckett play The Image, opening next year in New York City.) Most recently, Doillon has been found camped out in a loft on the Bowery in downtown Manhattan accompanied by her 6-year-old son, Marlowe. Here she's intent on making her music-a soulful blend of acoustic guitar, ukulele, and singing.

Somewhere between the parties and premieres of the Cannes Film Festival this past May, Doillon's longtime friend Milla Jovovich sat down with her to talk. The two have a lot in common-acting, modeling, music, motherhood, and fashion design. (Doillon recently began working for British denim label Lee Cooper and will remain with that partnership through 2010; Jovovich continues to crank out sartorial hits with her womenswear collection, Jovovich-Hawk.) They also share a taste for philosophy, literature, and history, none of which would one imagine coming up while the two dress in couture for dinner in the south of France. But Doillon and Jovovich are not your typical partygoers. If they have extra time to talk, they'll fill it brilliantly.

MILLA JOVOVICH: For Cannes this season, you wore a crown made by Chau-met, and you carried it in a plastic bag. That must feel like a big responsibility.

LOU DOILLON: It was my obsession while walking through the whole air-port. I was like, "Don't forget the plastic bag." [laughs] If I put my purse down to look at magazines or have a coffee, I was like, "Don't lose it . . ."

MJ: It gives a whole new definition to digging through your purse, taking stuff out, and putting it on the table to find your lipstick.

LD: In the plane, I put it in the overhead above me, and for the whole plane ride I was thinking, It's above me, it's above me. As I was leaving, I was thinking, You mustn't forget. I started leaving and almost forgot. I had to come back and take the thing!

MJ: Weird accidents have happened in the last few years. I used to travel to Cannes with a little purse that I would carry at all times with about $3 million worth of jewelry in it. I would sleep with it. I would literally have it on my body and never separate from it. Then I went back to the jewelry store for some event and wanted to borrow a necklace. They made me go through so much hell. I said, "You guys gave me, like, $3 million worth of jewelry a few years ago." They said, "Yeah, but an unnamed star happened to lose hers." So how much sleep did you get last night?

LD: I guess three or four hours.

MJ: What time did you go to bed?

LD: 8 a.m.

MJ: That's not really last night.

LD: No, it's not.