Pauline Chalamet on French New Wave Cinema and Finding the Sophisticated in Everyday Life

Pauline Chalamet french new wave sex lives of collage girls editorial interview mindy kaling new york alice guy blanche filmmaking short film polyester polyester zine polyesterzine kimberly finkle tv show — Fans of HBO’s *The Sex Lives of College Girls* will recognise Pauline Chalamet best as nerdy Kimberly Finkle, with her feet firmly planted in Essex College’s coffee shop, her nose buried in the reams of academic texts she wants to master, and her wandering mind finding love and lust with many an eligible bachelor in the drama series created by Mindy Kaling.
In real life, however, Pauline Chalamet appears on a video call as a quintessential vision of French Girl beauty, bare-faced and clad in a black turtleneck. “I’m sorry I’m sick,” she apologises profusely while digging her nails into the skin of a clementine to peel it, casually munching on the wedges between questions for a dose of Vitamin C.

When I ask her about her educational background compared to the wild partying and zany escapades experienced by the girls on the show, Pauline laughs and waves it off. “I think the girls on the show party much more than I did at Bard [College, a liberal arts university in New York].”

Indeed, her own academic experience is a far cry from the naked parties, secret comedy club initiations and frat benders featured in the show. Born and bred in New York City, Pauline attended the liberal arts high school La Guardia, where she felt out of place, something she channelled during the show's first episode, where Kimberly appears and feels socially unsure. “It was hard at first because school was so academically driven, and everyone in my class had already read Plato, which was crazy.” That was the in for Pauline when playing Kimberly: she could channel the character’s awkwardness and gullibility by accessing her younger years.

“That is where Kimberly and I differ because I want the result and not the process.”

“When I read the pilot, I immediately related to the fact that Kimberly needed to get a job to support herself through college, which is exactly what I did,” Pauline says now. After attending Bard and studying theatre and political science, in 2014 Pauline moved to Paris (where she also lives now), without telling her family – a far cry from anything her character would dare to do.

“Kimberly wants to follow the rules, and she understands that it's going to take time to get places. In season three, when she talked about being a Supreme Court justice, she's fine with that happening in her fifties,” says Pauline, then takes a beat before continuing. “That is where Kimberly and I differ because I want the result and not the process.”

In Paris, she juggled a myriad of jobs after graduating, from babysitting gigs to copyediting and even bartending at a rock and roll bar until 5am. Pauline thinks fondly of those times: despite the financial anxiety, the freedom to do whatever she wanted was intoxicating. “It would be 2:30 AM, and I’d be delirious with all these ideas. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I had all these ideas that needed to be written down, so I’d scribble them on the back of receipt papers.”

Pauline paints a vivid picture of downtown Paris, where everyone is sloshed, and the music is good, but New York will always be the actor’s first and biggest love, to the extent that she produced and starred in What Doesn’t Float, an ensemble anthology film based on stories of the city in 2023. Indeed, her career has seen her don multiple caps within the film and TV industry, from actor to director to producer to writer – all inspired by an upbringing wherein she was exposed to a wide range of cinema by her parents and grandmother (she’s named after the Eric Rohmer film Pauline at the Beach).

“ That was my way into acting: realising I could make connections to my everyday life.”

Her short film Entre Deux (2019), for example, features a gorgeous city dance shot reminiscent of Leo Carax’s Mauvais Sang (also referenced in Greta Gerwig’s Frances Ha). Pauline, therefore, sprinkles a generous helping of French New Wave charm wherever she can.

“French New Wave cinema made me want to do the film because it’s sophisticated everyday stories which almost always centre around the theme of love,” she says. “When I started making short films, I was really inspired by this approach to capturing everyday motions. That was my way into acting: realising I could make connections to my everyday life.”

Forever nurturing her garden of disciplines, Chalamet is focused on the acting flower while occasionally watering the producing plant with her company Gummy Films founded in 2019. With the company's conception, she credits her creative co-founders Rachel Walden and Luca Balser. “We were already helping each other on films, so it created itself. I love producing because I love getting shit done.” Through her production company, she’s produced several features, advertisements and music videos, notably ASAP Rocky’s “Highjack” and Brockhampton’s “Basement”. Pauline even starred in and produced Patou’s series of short films inspired by Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7, which recreates the latter’s iconic opening scene featuring tarot cards, dire premonitions and an actress resigned to her fate.

For an actor making calls and taking shots on her own terms, it’s no surprise that Chalamet’s number one inspiration is Alice Guy Blaché, famously the first woman to ever make a film. From 1896 to 1906, she was probably the only female filmmaker in the world. “Alice had her finger on the pulse. She knew that moving images could be something even though nobody cared about it then. I was so in love with her. I constantly think about her.” Blaché moved to the United States and opened her own studio in New York, and when all the big studios moved to Los Angeles, she was the only one who didn't go. “I love everything about her; she would have a big sign above her soundstage. The sign said, Be Natural,” Pauline says. “I think about that every day.”

Pauline Chalamet on French New Wave Cinema, Getting Shit Done and Finding the Sophisticated in Everyday Life

“That is where Kimberly and I differ because I want the result and not the process.”

“ That was my way into acting: realising I could make connections to my everyday life.”

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