Johnny Depp's Love Vanessa Paradis Goes Bare (Faced) in 'Cafe de Flore'

The French model-singer-actress downplays her beauty to play the poor, single mother of a Down syndrome child in Jean-Marc Vallee's film.

NOV

14

4 HRS

Like us, you're probably used to seeing Johnny Depp's significant other, Vanessa Paradis, looking either very glam or laid-back rocker chick like she looked when sheperformed in L.A. earlier this year. But in her new film, Cafe de Flore, Vanessa pulls aCharlize Theron (Monster) and downplays her looks so dramatically that she is almost unrecognizable. Except for her tell-tale front-tooth gap.

Vallee -- who had Paradis high on his wish list of actresses, which included Marion Cotillard, Audrey Tautou and Charlotte Gainsbourg -- told Fash Tracklast week that Paradis wore absolutely no makeup for the entire film. To top it off, her gorgeous hair was dyed a mousey brown.

The film, which was written and directed by Jean-Marc Vallee and screened at September's Toronto Film Festival, consists of two suspenseful, psychological charged, musically intertwined love triangles: one between a man, his adored wife and his new soul mate and the other between a poor young mother, her Down syndrome child and his first crush.

Of her deglamming, Paradis admits: "It was interesting for everyone to see me like that. i wasn't there to be glamorous, and that's what doing a movie is about, to step into someone else's life. It was not even in my mind that I'm going to look so ugly. It was about being this mom and doing a good job."

Paradis, whom Vallee says is now focusing more on her acting career, plays a woman trying to take the best care of her son. Her character, abandoned by the child's father, devotes her all life, her time and what little money she has to her boy and his education. Being a mother of two children herself, Jack and Lily Rose, Paradis explains the relationship and the inherent problems of parenting.

"Every parent tries their best, and it's always hard -- nobody can be perfect," she said. "It's really hard to cope with your personality and your want of protecting, and loving, and raising your child and what your child wants. Here is another person. So the rule of human beings living together and getting along, it's not an easy thing. But when it's two people who are that close who live together in a difficult situation, those are the negative things. But there is also the unconditional love and the devotion of a mom and the relationship that those two have. "

Cafe de Flore is seeking a distributor for release in the U.S. Fingers firmly crossed they get it.