Our brush with the pixie.

Being that Geoff has mentioned A Very Long Engagements in some recent posts, I feel the need to tell our Audrey Tautou story to anyone who doesn't know it already.

Thanks to the most excellent Monica Hill, Geoff and I had the pleasure of meeting Audrey Tautou a while back (2 years ago?) in a rather strange setting: we helped her move.

Turns out that Monica had the coolest freelance job in world history for three weeks or so. She was hired to apartment-shop for Audrey Tautou, since she was going to be shooting an indie film in Manhattan and needed a place to be Audrey Tautou for about 8 months. She got a temporary place on Washington Square on her arrival in NY but needed more permanent digs. So Monica would go around, seeing awesome expensive apartments in the Village, and she'd occasionally bring Audrey out to see the nicer ones that she found. This was the coolest thing imaginable for me, since I was just about at the height of my Amelie crush at the time (something every male that has ever existed has experienced, even people hundreds of years ago, strangely enough).

Geoff was also going through his A-crush at the moment. So Monica would occasionally bait us with Audrey stories and we'd salivate. I mentioned off-handedly that we'd love to, ya know, help her move once she found a place, never expecting that would happen.

Then Monica called and asked if we'd help Audrey Tautou move and I had a heart attack. THE END!

Actually, the moving experience was pretty funny. I remember getting really freaked out about meeting her. I was A-crushing really bad at the time and it was screwing with my head. I actually bought her a bottle of wine as a housewarming gift (?!) and then wisely decided to leave it at home on the day of the move, realizing that I'd rather she forget me completely than remember me as the sketchiest American alive.

I think Geoff and I both expected her to be the charming, soft-spoken French pixie goddess that was Amelie. When we walked into Audrey's apartment, we instead found a tiny chain-smoking pixie goddess wearing all black and a boy haircut. She was pretty stressed about moving, not to mention her new film role, which involved her trying to learn (and act in) English for the first time.

By far the scariest thing about the experience was driving with her in the backseat of my car, and trying not to stare into the rearview mirror. By far the funniest thing about the move was watching her speak English. When she spoke French, she had this beautiful, mellifluous Amelie voice. And when she tried to speak to Geoff and me in English, she would get uncomfortable and she tried to instill confidence in herself by shouting goofily. Here's the basic comparison:

Her speaking French to her friend: "Où est-ce qu'on peut manger un casse-croûte?"

Her speaking English to us: "YES, EH- THE COWCH will go IN THE... CORNER THANKS!!!"

So that's pretty much the end. Conclusion: Audrey Tautou is a lovable French actress who becomes hilariously loud when speaking broken English. And here I am criticizing her on my comedy group's blog. Shame on me.

Everybody go see A Very Long Engagement!

"An emotional powerhouse."
-Rolling Stone

"Fneh!"
-Geoff Haggerty