Pauline Chalamet: How did we first meet? I think it was the time I went to the first fashion show [Patou] ever had, and I met Deborah, who was their PR. She was talking about who were friends of the brand, and she said you were. And I said, “Janicza is my idol, the person I want to meet more than anyone”. And she said, “Oh, I invited her to the show – hopefully, you guys will be able to meet.” But I think you were working, and we didn’t get to meet at that first show. But then we met at someone’s birthday party. And then we saw each other again at the next Patou show. You don’t understand how much I was freaking out.
Janicza Bravo: So this interview for you is actually just you telling me that you like me?
PC: Exactly. I actually just finished watching The Listeners. But I think the first things I watched of yours were short films that were on the Criterion Channel. And I was like, “Who is this person?” And there was Pauline Alone. They were all so good. And I was like, I need to meet this person. Lemon had already come out, so then I watched Lemon, and then my whole life energy was going toward meeting you. And then we met at the thing, and you thought you were meeting Kimberly Finkle.
JB: No, I mean, I was meeting the real person, but I was just so excited because I really love TV. I OD on TV. I remember Jeremy O. Harris telling me, “Oh, I think you would really like this show.” I think I had asked him, “I just need something. I need content”.
It was also really wild to be watching it as the political climate was changing in the U.S., because the show paints a picture of a very inclusive world. And I found it was making me a little sad. Because I thought, there’s been this question of “Is the work going to change over the next four years?” due to what’s about to happen.
PC: Yeah, I think that’s very interesting. I think it was a very big wish of how a college campus could be. Because even though I believe that through it all, we will continue to make progress, pendulums swing from one extreme to the next. And it’s very easy to feel like this has never happened before, but that feeling is actually kind of dangerous. Because things like this have happened before. And I think that what Justin and Mindy did with the show is, they really created what Justin wished his college experience had been like. But the truth is, no college campus is as inclusive, as joyous, and as filled with as many incredible themed parties as Essex. But it gives you this utopia, in a way. It’s weird to exist in this space where we’re so accepting of all these things and then go back to reality, where Donald Trump is about to start a second term.
JB: It created a real bubble. It was already a bubble, obviously, but it really felt like one. It felt like I was watching a daydream. I was like, “Oh, that feels imagined.”
PC: Yeah, it felt that way when we were doing table reads, too. Because there’s so much acceptance, and anything is possible, and then instant contrast to the outside world.
JB: What was your actual college experience like?
PC: I went to Bard, upstate New York. It was nothing like Essex, but it was very small. No parties, no frat or sorority life. The parties were house parties. Very rural. I actually became a good student in college.
JB: Were you not a good student before?
PC: No, I got by. I didn’t dislike school, but I didn’t care about it. In college, I really got into academics. I believe I learned how to read.
JB: This sounds like an advertisement for Bard. “Bard taught me how to read.”
PC: [Laughs] Bard taught me how to read Reading comprehension. I remember reading Paradise Lost. It gave me a community where I had to read a few chapters or stanzas, come back, talk about it, analyse it.
But college is weird. It’s this weird part of the American dream where you’re told anything is possible. Then you get to college, and they say, “Take your time figuring out what you want to study.” But you don’t really have that time. Let’s be real. You graduate, a lot of students have immense debt, and you have to spend those years figuring out what you want to do just so you can start making money to pay it back.
JB: Do you feel that’s the North American relationship to higher education? You’re in Paris now, you live there. Among your French or European friends, does it look similar?
PC: It’s completely different. The cost of school in the U.S. is unfathomable anywhere else. Take our northern neighbors in Canada, or our southern neighbors in Mexico. No one is paying as much as people do in the U.S. No one is paying as much for daycare or boarding school. There’s this very strange relationship between money and education.
JB: Is that part of why you left? Why did you leave home?
PC: Why did I leave home? Ah… I don’t know. I think part of me understands the value system in France more.
JB: Can you define what that value system is?
PC: I don’t know if I can. It’s more about what matters in life, right? You can be someone who is work-obsessed, who loves their work – and that’s amazing, and you should be rewarded for that. But the gap between those who work just to live and those who are workaholics shouldn’t be so big that they can’t even communicate anymore. When you’re in a place with more of a social system, that communication still happens on a more level playing field. It’s changing across Europe, but there’s still much more communication. Also, I just learned this: The taxes you pay in France and in California? Exactly the same. And in France, those taxes give you healthcare. Free daycare. Schools with good education, including meals. So many things that serve the system. I just like the idea of a social system. I like it. I think it’s nice. you make more money, you pay more in taxes to help those who don’t have as much.
JB: You’re pro-socialism.
PC: I’m really pro-socialism. Sure, maybe you make a little less personally, but I think you’ll be happier.
