Before the debut of the film «Mank» by David Fincher, Lily Collins virtually met Alber Elbaz to discuss the aesthetic influence of «Emily in Paris» and the next big challenges of the two creative.

When Lily Collins arrived in Paris, over a year and a half ago, to start filming &quot;Emily in Paris&quot; - the Netflix series that gave good humor and became a mega hit overnight-, the city was not as he expected it. Born in Surrey, but raised in Los Angeles, Phil Collins&#39;s daughter had long been a staunch Francophile, but once she returned to the French capital to play Emily, an American eager to conquer the world of high fashion, the city seemed to have turned down&nbsp;the tones. The August heat had convinced many Parisians to focus on holidays in Biarritz or Provence, so Collins and the crew found themselves in a world of their own. Big oval glasses and unflappable gaiety, Alber Elbaz had a similar experience when he moved to the fashion capital from New York. &quot;Where is everyone? I kept wondering,&rdquo; recalls Elbaz, who had crossed the Atlantic to work for Guy Laroche in the mid-1990s. Then, for the designer, it was the turn of Yves Saint Laurent and Lanvin, where he left his mark by redefining the universe of the brand and women&#39;s fashion as we know it today. Chance wanted him to be in Paris the summer Collins arrived and thanks to a mutual friendship that introduced them, the two continued dating while filming the production signed by Darren Star. &ldquo;At one point I wondered if I was part of the show too ,&rdquo; laughs Elbaz. It wasn&#39;t, but the close connections between the two were many. Many months later, between broken records and internet memes, Collins temporarily put his beret aside; today she is no longer Emily and not even the old version of herself. Fresh from the engagement, the actress is tackling what could prove to be the most important step in her career with &quot;Mank&quot;, the new film by David Fincher that traces the story of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and his infamous feud with director Orson Welles. Reserved but biting, Collins plays Rita, Gary Oldman&#39;s slender secretary, who plays Mankiewicz and the voice of reason in the face of the writer&#39;s neglected domestic chaos. The black and white film was written by Jack, Fincher&#39;s late father, to celebrate the glories of old-time Hollywood, thanks to his impeccable direction. After his farewell to Lanvin, in 2015, Elbaz had deliberately kept himself on the margins of the fashion arena, collaborating rather on the beauty, footwear, even film projects front, until the current muted launch of AZfashion, the fashion project of which little is known , except that it is supported by the Richemont group . The actress and the designer came together to convey enthusiasm about each other&#39;s challenges, think about creativity in times of quarantine and the joy that will come. 
 
JOSHUA GLASS: &ldquo;Emily in Paris&rdquo; jokes about different aspects, but basically the show is about what it means to be an outsider, be it an industry, a point of view, a way of being. What does it mean for you? 
 
LILY COLLINS: There isn&#39;t a transformative scene on the show where Emily walks into a dressing room like Emily in Chicago and walks out like Emily in Paris. It remains itself throughout the season as it grows and learns. Every time I go to a set myself, whether it&#39;s cinema or TV, I feel a bit like that, a fish out of water. It&#39;s the experience of approaching a new environment, not knowing anyone, putting on the table whatever you are prepared for, or what you think you are. It was interesting to play a young woman in a foreign environment, adapting while remaining true to herself. I think many people can recognize themselves in not wanting to change what they are in order to adapt to a certain situation.

ALBER ELBAZ: The series reminded me of a kind of Cinderella and &quot;Pretty Woman&quot;, which, I have to say, I&#39;ve seen 55 times. To me the message that gets through is that it pays to be good in the end, because you, Lily, could have been a bitch, and there would have been, but you didn&#39;t. Your Emily is a good girl with beautiful values, who doesn&#39;t understand why people don&#39;t cooperate with her or understand her. I have lived as an immigrant several times in my life: I was born in Morocco, raised in Israel and then I went to America. My apartment in New York was the size of a table and I shared it with two other people, Muffin was the name of one of them. New York you had to see it with your own eyes to understand it and when I arrived, I wasn&#39;t just an outsider, I was nobody. 
 
JG: No one would have imagined such a huge success for the TV series, Lily at the moment this is your best known role. Alber, in your long career, have you ever experienced an &ldquo;Emily in Paris&rdquo; moment?

AE: One day I was in New York and I saw some beautiful roses. &quot;Wow they&#39;re wonderful,&quot; I said and the florist replied, &quot;Eighteen dollars.&quot; I hadn&#39;t even asked for the price yet that was the reaction. A few months later I was in Paris and I ran into another little shop. &ldquo;Wow these roses are enchanting,&rdquo; I said to the owner and he replied, &ldquo;They are called Piaget roses and they only grow once a year. You smell them, they grow in the sun &rdquo;. These are little things that show the differences between people, cities, cultures. In Paris they invented perfumes, so there is always a dream feeling. I remember what my mother said about perfume: &ldquo;Just smell it, never drink it&rdquo;, these are her words.

LC: Don&#39;t want too much of a good thing?

AE: Yes, and it also applies to success. I think one of the biggest dangers of success is when you start to think you&#39;re fabulous, out of the ordinary. I always keep in mind the history of perfume and I say to myself: &ldquo;Don&#39;t drink the perfume, just smell it&rdquo;.

&nbsp;

JG: You are both turning the page on two very important chapters in your lives. Lily, your new movie &ldquo;Mank&rdquo;, directed by David Fincher, debuts on Netflix this month. Alber, you are focused on AZfashion, your new fashion project in collaboration with Richemont. How do you live it on the emotional front?

LC: I never thought I&#39;d be able to work with David. I consider the idea that he believed in me a gift, taking part in a project of this caliber is a dream. David is a genius. He knows exactly what he wants and how to get it, but he is also open to collaboration. Being part of it all raises the level you set yourself on. The shoot coincided with Emily&#39;s and it was a strong contrast first and foremost between color and black and white, between irony and no-frills drama. Going back and forth between Paris and Los Angeles was tiring, but I felt so creatively accomplished.

AE: For any artist, the blank page is the hardest thing to deal with. I don&#39;t know how it works with acting, Lily, but sometimes it seems to me that what I do is akin to having a baby. At first it&#39;s not really like, &ldquo;Oh wow, life is great&rdquo;, rather it&#39;s an &ldquo;Ouch, ouch, ouch&rdquo; thing, but then it comes out and you forget about the pain. The really difficult thing is to let go of what you have built. After Lanvin I decided not to do fashion for a few years, because I was no longer in love with it, yet it was the only thing I knew how to do. I don&#39;t know how to drive a car, I couldn&#39;t even be a taxi driver! I received so many offers from the great Maisons, and I didn&#39;t want to be a diva, I just felt I couldn&#39;t start over very soon. I started teaching, going to so many amazing schools around the world and I realized what was coming next, the direction the world was going, of course, before covid-19 came. And then I signed with Richemont, I started this start-up.

LC: First of all congratulations, it&#39;s fantastic, we also know so little about it. I am very curious, is there anything you can reveal to us?

AE: There is a big difference between creating and recreating, in the past my work has often been not just a recreate, but a &quot;replace&quot;. This time I wanted to start from scratch, I have been observing women for the past five years, I have been paying attention to everything they are going through, to how their lives have changed. I&#39;ve always said that if I was a Hollywood producer, the next James Bond I would have turned into Jane Bond, and I wouldn&#39;t have chosen a former model but a smart woman, regardless of age and size, because they really don&#39;t matter. I look at how women live today, you see them running in ten different directions as they try to be the best mother, wife, colleague ... I understood that I had to find a solution; just what I&#39;m doing now, introducing new technologies, but also trying to go a little deeper, without stopping to define a fabulous look. I try to listen to women to understand what I can do to give them what they are dreaming of, because after all we don&#39;t live in a world made up only of algorithms and big data, or of instinct and emotion. We can put them together, like yin and yang. It is not a question of choosing this or that, but of uniting them.

JG: How does it feel to work on such significant projects, when the world has never been more different than we have known it?

LC: For me - actually for everyone in the industry - it was interesting what emerged during the quarantine, a feeling that I loved, even though it was so different. I missed being social, doing a photo shoot, being with people, yet it was really cool to see the cheer and laughter that Emily brought to so many people. It aired when people needed to laugh most. On the other hand, the quarantine was a great tool to separate my private life from my professional one. I got engaged during the quarantine and even though &quot;Mank&quot; was coming out, I didn&#39;t have to go straight away for weeks on press tours. I was able to talk about the film, which I&#39;m so excited about, from home and walk my dog right after. I count on my friends, my family and in some way also on me to bring me back to earth if it ever occurs to me to &quot;drink perfume&quot;. Staying at home and seeing &ldquo;Emily in Paris&rdquo; turn into a global and unexpected phenomenon, without it engulfing everything else, is an experience that humbled me. Like you said, you have to keep smelling.

AE: Dealing with covid has been so difficult, depressing and horrifying in every respect. Who would have guessed that we would have to wear masks and wipe our hands with alcohol. The thing I miss most is being hugged and being able to hug others, I don&#39;t ask to sit in a coffee, physical contact would be enough. I am a long-time hypochondriac, so it wasn&#39;t easy, yet I think this moment will take us elsewhere, it&#39;s a kind of detox that forces us not only to change, but to do it quickly.

LC: It was such an intense experience of introspection and identity crisis. It can be scary, especially if you have to look within and confront yourself about things about yourself or about your future, like you&#39;ve never done before. Every day you find yourself in front of a metaphorical mirror: who am I? what do i really want What am I doing to get it? What makes me so happy? Apart from that, we have had the opportunity to reflect on the great issues of the world, from covid, to Black Lives Matter, or to the recent political elections in America. We have had so much time still and quiet that at the end of it all I think there will be a kind of Renaissance, people are dying to be creative.

AE: I recently read that Roberto Benigni declared that poverty is the best inheritance that can be received. I believe we are all experiencing a sense of poverty today, because we lack a lot of things, friendship, people, family, work. Lily, the fact that you found the love of life during the quarantine is so symbolic, because you met when it was really you, no embellishments.

LC: The interesting thing is that Charlie (McDowell) and I met just before &ldquo;Emily in Paris&rdquo; and got engaged in September. It seems to me that the quarantine blew several couples, but in our case, our time together only reinforced what we already knew about each other. It&#39;s just like you said, I feel like everyone in these months has been who they really are, because there are no outside distractions. We are all returning to the essence of who we are, without the stratifications of society. When you see someone in their best moments as well as in their worst and you stick with them, I think it&#39;s a wonderful thing.

AE: Lily, do you know I designed 32 wedding dresses?

LC: I don&#39;t believe it.

AE: 32, and 31 are still married.

LC: Oh my God.

AE: You better call me if you need a suit!

&nbsp;

JG: To end this conversation, is there a question you would like to ask each other?

LC: Alber, I know that setting up an adventure like AZfashion is scary and tests your nerves, but it must be exciting: are you excited?

AE: As an actress, I&#39;m sure you have moments when you&#39;re on set, surrounded by people saying, &quot;Oh wow, that&#39;s great.&quot; But inside we ask ourselves, is it really fantastic? Will they understand the message? Will they fall in love with it? Because if they don&#39;t love what I do, they won&#39;t love me. We have become what we do, whatever it is. So yes I&#39;m very excited. You know, I&#39;m not a vacation type, I hate going on vacation, I hate the sand, I can&#39;t stand boats, so when I started, the first day I walked into the new office I said to myself, &ldquo;Oh my God, it&#39;s just started. my first day of vacation &rdquo;, and that&#39;s it.

LC: What a fantastic way of thinking. You know, you are one of the most loved people in your world - and the world - and everyone, me included, cheers for you. You talked about Emily&#39;s character, who is so good and loving and true to herself, but that&#39;s you Alber. In spite of everything and regardless of the obstacles that can be parried in front of you, you are you. I am so excited to see what you will propose to us now, because you always make a difference and you make women strong, you make them feel good about themselves.

Photo Sam Taylor-Johnson 
Fashion Jay Massacret 
Hair Kylee Heath 
Makeup Fiona Stiles using Lanc&ocirc;me 
Prop Stylist Christopher Katus 
Production Viewfinders 
Casting Lauren Tabach-Bank

Lily Collins in conversation with Alber Elbaz

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