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Throwback Thursday: Solenn Heussaff

11/7/2013

I Got Trolled by Solenn Heussaff from Glenn Orion on Vimeo.

The scene: Tuesday afternoon, mid-2011. One of the city's affluent neighborhoods. A colleague and I had just made a home delivery for our covergirl's commemorative frame. Cut to veranda; hilarity ensues.

But really, she was one of the more interesting interviews I'd done, and what ran was only a fraction of what we giggled about. Also, in the photos below, she isn't gazing wistfully into the distance by design. My take on a little behind-the-scenes that day will have to suffice since I can't find the tearsheets anywhere.

Femme Fatale

In French literature, the literally translated “fatal woman” is an archetypal character most known for being seductively beautiful and, especially toward her suitors, dangerous and difficult. Luckily for Solenn Heussaff, being half-French, only one part need apply. We’ll let you guess which.

Text by V. Glenn Orion
Photos by Cyrus Panganiban
Makeup by Lourd Ramos
Hair by John Valle
Styling by Patrick Galang
Shot on location at Manila Ocean Park’s Hotel H2O

Beauty and brains has been done. But beauty, brains, and comedy? Few have made the attempt and even fewer have successfully bridged all three. Some say comedy should be reserved for those with a knack for it and, let’s admit, aren’t what most, much less the fashion forward, would consider cover girl material. They say pretty girls ought to stick to the runway or only portray cliché or romantic roles.

Au contraire. Already a known face in the industry, Solenn Heussaff is as infectiously easy-going as she is drop-dead gorgeous. She has under her ivory skin and teasing eyes the unique ability to be goofy yet captivating, genuinely funny yet not overtly corny. She just as often laughs in spite of herself as she cracks a joke about her family, travels, career, and her never-ending pursuit of simply being Solenn.

La famille

By now, most are likely familiar with the final three-castaway from Survivor Philippines: Celebrity Showdown thanks to her pleasing character that’s clearly resonated with the masses. Solenn, or Sos, the name she introduced herself by, thanks her parents’ instilling good family values in her and her two siblings early on. Her father, a Frenchman who joined the navy, met her mother, a performer of the Bayanihan dance troupe while touring in Egypt. They didn’t have much when they married, but they managed to acquire a home in one of Makati’s more affluent villages. They both came from nothing but raised their children with all that mattered—fervent support, unconditional love, and traditional Filipino values.

And it shows. Solenn’s siblings, until older sister Vanessa moved back to Europe a few years ago, along with younger brother Erwan, all lived at home with their parents. Her father’s humbler days as a geophysical engineer a distant memory, Mr. Louis Paul Heussaff ventured into his own oil industry logistics and consultancy firm, Supply Oilfield Services (coincidentally also “SOS”), in 1979. Its successes and accompanying responsibilities, however, did not detract from him being a father to his children.

“I’m the female version of my dad,” Solenn quips, “I’m like him, but with longer hair.” In fact, no one gets her better than he does. “Sometimes he’ll know what I’m thinking even before I say it, so I can’t lie to him ‘cause he knows what I’m up to every minute of every day.” What may sound overbearing to others was really more of a laissez faire approach, something Solenn admired about her parents. “They’ve never said I couldn’t do this or do that, because I obviously have to learn from my own mistakes. They always guided me of course, but I know that no matter what I do, as long as I’m happy, they’ll support me and always have my back.”

Solenn, who already talks a mile a minute and often speaks in hyperbole, quickens her speech even more now as she reminisces about her childhood. “I’ve always been a clown, even since I was a kid.” There’s a 15-minute YouTube video of her and Erwan cooking their version of Canadian Poutine, a favorite dish of theirs during visits to Montreal. Her child-like enthusiasm and energy is not only contagious, it all but abates during the entirety of the video; the two giggle and tease each other between sticking asparagus up her nose to her attempts at silly Tagalog one-liners. They aren’t plugging a restaurant—Erwan hasn’t taken any formal cooking lessons—and Solenn isn’t trying to make an impression in case any directors or media execs are watching. They are simply brother and sister, enjoying a lazy afternoon and each other’s company as they would even if the camera was off.

Theirs was never the kind to be subject to sibling rivalries. They share some of the same friends and went to elementary school together. Her most traumatic experience at home, she jests, was when she locked herself in her closet and wrote a letter that she’d run away because her mom wouldn’t get the Barbie doll she wanted. “Both my parents came from poor families, so they brought us up the way they were brought up—good values and not taking anything for granted. We even had to work for our allowance. It was never like we would ask for something and they’d say, ‘Yea sure, here.’” She laughs as she remembers how she and Erwan would make a game out of their punishments. Sometimes they would even get in trouble just to “play detectives” and “escape from their captors.”

And their gastronomic adventures together are unmatched. Their parents, Solenn claims because they wanted a second honeymoon, left them at a camp for kids in Indonesia when she was about five or six. “I was thin until then,” she says, looking me right in the eye as if searching for any hint of disbelief because now with her 5’6” slender, model-like frame, a chubby kid would be the last thing on anyone’s mind. “It’s true,” she insists of her baby fat, “I can show you pictures. You’d laugh.” She goes on to retell how they were fed cheeseburgers “enough for ten people” and by the end of their stay, got so used to eating so much, they started enjoying it.

But the pièce de résistance of her childhood story came in her early teen years. So devastatingly affected by her classmates’ taunting and name-calling, Solenn did what she says no girls should ever do. “They were calling me ‘Shamu’ and ‘Free-Willy.’ So of course I was really hurt. When my parents were abroad, all I ate for three months was literally like, an apple a day. I eventually got sick with typhoid fever and lost about 10 kilos in the hospital.” The words still hanging in the air while Lourd Ramos continued to apply the finishing touches of her makeup, she continued without missing a beat, “But then I got discovered in Glorietta! At Glicos (an arcade) of all places!”

Moments like these are a given when with Solenn. Amongst her friends, who are mostly guys by the way, she is the funny one. “My brain’s kind of like, all over the place. I’ll talk about one thing and then a minute later I’ll be talking about a whole different thing that has nothing to do with the subject. And then go right back to what I was saying.” She likes random and spontaneous. “My family is very serious, especially my dad with his work, it can get very stressful. So I like to be the crazy one at home and just make up stories at the dinner table just to get a reaction from everybody. I think life’s too short to take it so seriously sometimes.”

Joie de vivre: Lover of life

A true lover of life and admittedly obsessed with travelling, Solenn has made it one of her life goals to have been to as many countries as her age for that given year (she turns 26 this July). It was her love for travel that brought her to study in Paris for five years. “Of course when I’m in France, I miss it here, and when I’m here, I miss it there.” She confesses, though, that while they may predominantly speak French at home, she prefers it in Manila. “If I had to choose [where to settle down], it’d be here. I mean, France is great for vacationing and studying, but I just like it more here. I feel more at home.”

When she does travel, Solenn makes trying the local fare, even the street food, which she calls “more authentic” her first priority. “Then I’ll go do the cultural thing and then shopping is last.” She’s a far cry from the “socialite”, “It Girl” mold others have been trying to shape her in. For example, she has sinigang Sundays, her favorite comfort food which she cooks for her friends. “I just enjoy good company, being with crazy people like me.”

And it’s people like those that have made her travels so memorable. She celebrated her birthday while on Survivor and said it was the best, most unforgettable yet. When asked by host Richard Guitterez who she missed most from back home, she replied frankly, “Of course I miss my family, but this is just one month out of my life, so I’m okay.”

There’s a sort of candidness with Solenn that isn’t at all contrived. She really gives of herself at face value. She isn’t shy about the fact that she wasn’t completely confident about herself even during her first TVC back in 2002. “I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘Hey, people actually want to see me!’” The folks at GMA couldn’t have agreed more. After Survivor, she inked an exclusive three-movie deal with them and has already begun pre-production on the second project. Her big screen debut stars Richard Guitterez, Rhian Ramos, Lovie Poe, and Eugene Domingo in a romantic comedy just in time for Valentines.

But she’s as capable in front of the camera as she is behind it. She jokes that the talent in her family must have skipped a generation. “My mom is probably the only Filipina that can’t sing. And my dad can’t even draw stick figures.” Solenn is an in-house designer for fashion conglomerate TAN-GAN, and a known makeup artist who created quite a stir with her bodypainting of model Joey Mead for a magazine cover. She’s also made numerous appearances on a variety of shows belting out tunes from "Billie Jean" to "Mon Mec A Moi," and just signed her recording contract with MCA Universal.

Busy belle

Someone with so much already under his or her belt would reason that a much-needed rest was in order. Not Solenn. She continues hard at work doing what she loves. Without complaint, she arrived at our shoot on time, went through all the prep, did this interview, Tweeted about Hotel H2O’s beautiful rooms, and only on the last of six looks mentioned that she hadn’t eaten since the night before.

Solenn believes in always learning and trying new things. “If I could be a student forever, I would. I was even supposed to go to Italy this year and take a class on shoemaking, but my schedule is just jam-packed right now.” What with her second movie underway, an upcoming television series in the making, an album that’s about to wrap, and still continuing to be a major endorser of some of the country’s leading brands, it’s hard to imagine how she can have time for much else like, say, a love life.

“Oh, that,” she laughs, “that’s the least of my worries at the moment. I’ve always been dating or in and out of not-so-serious relationships, so I think now is a good time to focus on myself and my career.” And that’s about all there is to her list of things she doesn’t want to do. “I’m just going with the flow. I’m open to whatever comes my way. If it’s humanly possible and not a bad thing, I’m willing to try it.”

Her fearlessness, ready smile, and contagious laughter are what’s made her a successful painter, singer, designer, castaway, actress, VJ, model—the list goes on and on. With her dangerously ambitious mind to take whatever field she chooses next by coup d’état, the brunette bombshell certainly poses a threat to whatever stands in her way. “If you can do or be one thing, or ten things, or even twenty things, as long as you’re good at it, why not?” So what exactly can we expect from Solenn?

Your guess is as good as mine.