INTERVIEW WITH DIANE GAIDRY

ESTHER ESTEBAN, Madrid. In this time, Passing Moons (Lunas Pasajeras) interview to Diane Gaidry, an absolute dream for me and a reason for follow working and fighting in this profession, as pretty as ungrateful.

Diane Gaidry is a beautiful woman and a beautiful person, one person very very special, a type of person hard to find and she do better the world that around him, apart of a big actress. In this interview you can meet better to Diane and know how he has lived her different projects in her career, remember her famous roles like Simone of Loving Annabelle or Ellie of The Dogwalker, her dreams and challenges, her work like personal coach or her day at day personal and lifestyle.

I know her for many years and finally came the day when I could do this interview, one nice interview where we treat many forms of seen the world, we speak about this profession and simply… about the life.

If you do not want to lose probably the best interview of Passing Moons, you must read now this interview.

A PERSONAL TEST FOR DIANE GAIDRY

1-What is your secret for the happiness?

I believe that the secret to happiness is living in integrity. That means being clear about what is right and not right for one’s self. Listening to that quiet but constant voice that lives in our hearts and our guts and honoring it. This may sound simple but I do not mean to imply that it is easy. It goes against how we have been socialized to follow the rest of the herd, regardless of what our inner knowing tells us. Living in integrity requires courage – “Coeur-age”, living from the heart.

2-What is your ideal plan for a perfect day?

I don’t think that I can say that I have an ideal for a perfect day. I try to appreciate whatever shows up on any given day and not judge it and resist it. That said, I love going for walks with my dog and other friends. I love seeing a powerful film or listening to music. A good glass of wine and great food with people I love is another favorite pastime of mine. And I am happy if I perceive that I have made a positive difference for someone.

3-What is the most important in a person for you and what is the thing that you can’t stand?

For me, the most important quality in a person is sensitivity. I want to be around people who are compassionate and empathetic. People who are connected to our environment. People who are present enough to feel not only their own feelings but also sense their impact on others.

The characteristic that I can’t stand in people is hierarchy. We all have it to some extent because we live in the paradigm of patriarchy. But anyone who is deeply committed to their sense of entitlement or privilege, anyone who believes that the world owes them is dangerous. Whether they feel that they have suffered and therefore are entitled to behave badly or whether they have been handed everything on a silver platter, these people do not appear to sense the inter-connectedness of everything. And that is why we have wars and global warming. And I’m tired of it.

4- What challenges and dreams you want to realize?

I want to be kind. At the end of my life, I want to look back and feel that I have left this place a little bit nicer than I found it. I want to have worked on my stuff, healed a lot of my wounds enough to be in choice and not be reactive. I want to be present enough to appreciate the tiniest glimmer of beauty and sweetness that life has offered me. I want to live from my heart and be less defensive and less protected.

5-A  book, disc, song, and a theatre play that have most influenced you?.

The art form that I have the most visceral response to is film. And one of my favorite films of all time is The Terrorist, by Santosh Sivan. I am also a huge fan of the Dardenne brothers and their beautiful work. Ken Loach is another favorite filmmaker. I recently watched his film, The Angel’s Share and found it to be very sweet and powerful. The quality that all of my favorite films and filmmakers share is their raw and profound humanity.

6 -What do you think about the difficulty of being happy and comfortable with yourself to live in a world full of haste, prejudice, envy and complexities?

I’ve recently gotten deeper into the writings of Don Miguel Ruiz and I’m fascinated by the Toltec philosophy that includes the belief that our experience that we call “life” or “reality” is a dream. He says that we have a shared frame for our dreams, things that we agree on like the facts such as that I am typing the answers to these questions on my MacBook. But how we perceive these “facts” is colored by our individual dream, which makes our world complex. And unfortunately, our collective dream on this planet is framed by a paradigm that supports the perception of separateness and duality, the breeding ground for hate, prejudice, envy and lots of other painful dynamics. I don’t think we can change anyone else’s dream, but we can make different choices in our own. We can choose to focus on the beauty and live in gratitude and appreciation and presence, which can shift our experience.

7-How is the love for you? Do you think that exist the real and true love?

I am a hopeless romantic. Romantic love is very important to me. I believe that relationships are a spiritual path. They are an opportunity to see ourselves in the mirror that our partner holds up for us. I enjoy almost any experience more when I can share it with the person I love.

8-A song for the soundtrack of your life?

Leonard Cohen’s «Halleluja»

9-What do you think awaits us after death?

Peace. And a profound experience of love that our human hearts can’t even begin to hold and that no words in any language can begin to describe. Merging back into oneness. Until we have to come back and do “life” again in another body. Even the word “death” is a misnomer to me. I’d rather say, when I’m no longer in my current body.

10-What is your ideal of beauty? What do you win the heart?

My ideal of beauty is anything that is authentic, genuine and a unique expression of that person, place, or thing.

QUESTIONNAIRE ABOUT HER CAREER

1- It had to be difficult to learn the paper of Simone for Loving Annabelle in three days. What was the biggest challenge and the most pleasure of making this film?

Yes, it was a challenge going into production only 3 days after I was cast in the role of Simone. I guess the benefit of only having 3 days was that I had to stay very focused on learning the lines and understanding what was happening in each scene so I didn’t have time to let myself be neurotic. Erin was very generous and supportive and easy to work with and Catherine was very clear in her vision and direction.

2-I think that the power of your eyes is amazing. What was the most special and more complicated scene for you in the film?

Thank you. I think that being an introvert helps me to have a rich internal life when I am acting.

Honestly, it’s been so long since we shot the film, I don’t remember much about the specific moments of the various scenes.

3- The end marked me. How do you imagine Annabelle and Simone through the years ? What would you like for them?

I imagine that Annabelle and Simone eventually find their way back to one another. I think that their connection was genuine and deep. I think they would probably have a difficult time staying together once they were able to legally be together though because Annabelle is so young. I find it difficult to believe that she would be ready to settle down with Simone for the rest of her life.

4-I know that you feel a great love for animals. What do you remember of The DogWalker?

Again, it’s been a long time since we shot The Dogwalker but I was also more involved in the development, pre-production, festival life, and distribution of this film. I do have a great love for animals and I am very happy to have so many of the dogs that I used to take care of in our film. I miss them. And I also miss Pamela. She was such a wonderful actress and a good sport with our low budget/no frills locations. It was a complete shock to us when we found out a couple of days before she died that she was sick and not expected to live. I’m certain that wherever she is, it’s a whole lot more interesting and fun with Pamela there.

5-How is working in company Torn Space? Is it true that once the theater gets inside you cannot escape?

I love working with the people at Torn Space because their work is so visionary and interesting. It is the kind of theatre that I would go see if I wasn’t in it. I can’t say that I love theatre in general though. I wish there was more of a film community where I live, but Buffalo is way more of a theatre town. I miss film. I am much better suited to film acting than live theatre.

6- Would you like to return soon for a short style Egg or Transaction?

I would love to act in another interesting short film. I love that form. It can really deliver a big impact in a short amount of time. I’m also hoping to direct a short sometime in the next year. I am currently in the process of writing the script.

7- How did you prepare a character like Transaction?

I didn’t do much preparation for my character in Transaction. It was really more of an exercise and we never dreamed that it would become an award winning short film. I did speak with my friend who was a call girl for more than two decades. Jacques (my ex-husband who directed the film) and I spoke with her to learn how a typical “transaction” goes. My friend is a very kind and sweet person and I would never imagine that that was her former profession if she hadn’t told me. So I didn’t feel any need to create a character who seemed like she had lived that life.

8-It’s been difficult for you make scenes of love in the films?

A lot of people have asked me this question. It makes me sad that we live in a world where we ask actors how difficult it is to portray an expression of love but it doesn’t occur to us to ask an actor how difficult it was to portray someone who kills another person. Why don’t we ask this question of people who play violent video games? Why are we so hung up on naked bodies and sexuality yet we’re apparently fine with violence?

9-How do you changed since Summer Dreams for today?

It has been more than a quarter of a century since Summer Dreams was made. More than half my life ago. As a life coach, I like to try to assist people in finding a more direct path to fulfillment than the one I took. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and wrong turns throughout my life and the young woman who played Shawn Love was very well intentioned and very much adrift. I’m still not very good at reading maps but I now have a much stronger connection with my inner GPS.

Thanks to: Diane Gaidry