Photo by Nathaniel Goldberg.
Jane Birkin on Her Regrets,Romances, and Renewed Sense of Self
What’s it like being the most beautiful woman in the world? At 74 (as of yesterday), Jane Birkin is tired of answering that question. So we asked the storied British actor, musician, and icon of French New Wave fashion some other ones, lifted from Glenn O’Brien’s 1977 interview with Andy Warhol. Does Jane Birkin get drunk? Does Jane Birkin believe in god? What about marriage? (She had one, but she would’ve done it again.) Though it’s a far cry from her days of heavy panting with Serge Gainsbourg, Birkin’s latest album, Oh! Pardon, tu dormais—direct translation: “Oh! Sorry, you were sleeping”—is her most intimate one yet, a reconciliation with the grief of losing her late daughter, Kate Barry, and other lingering ghosts. Locked down in her Paris flat with her new bulldog puppy, Birkin answers wistfully about her regrets, her romances, and her renewed sense of self: “I realize how nice it is when people like what you write or what you paint or what you do.”