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On a crisp October afternoon in the Bois de Vincennes, on the outskirts of Paris, FKA twigs is transported back to 1950s America. Wearing a cream-colored pinstriped coat, a dark beret and black leather gloves, the British
singer and dancer has been up since the early hours, with a 4 a.m. pickup for hair and makeup to transform into Josephine Baker, the legendary entertainer and civil rights activist.
Standing opposite her is Oscar-nominated actor Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who plays Baker’s mother. The two are filming a tense confrontation at a cemetery, a scene that cuts to the heart of Maïmouna Doucouré’s ambitious biopic.
Between takes, FKA twigs stays in character, looking pensive and emotional. The atmosphere on set is studious and distinctly international, with cast and crew switching between English and French.
And while the cemetery scene unfolding that afternoon is intimate, other sequences have the scale and flamboyance of a classic Hollywood production, notably those recreating the legendary Folies Bergère cabaret in Paris, where Baker became a sensation in the 1920s. The sprawling production has enlisted some 2,400 extras.
Yet behind the lavish costumes, musical performances and sweeping historical canvas, “Josephine Baker” is ultimately a portrait of a woman whose extraordinary public life was shaped by private wounds.
“What’s most important to me is not simply portraying Josephine as this powerful woman, this icon who was inducted into the Panthéon. We already know that side of her. I want to tell the story of the woman behind the icon,” says Doucouré, the Sundance-winning filmmaker behind “Cuties” and “Hawa,” speaking over lunch with the crew.
“I want to explore her wounds, her vulnerability, her flaws, the things that shaped her and the extraordinary resilience she developed,” she says. “I think her strength becomes even more extraordinary when you understand where it comes from.”
Rather than delivering a conventional biopic, Doucouré has built the narrative around Baker’s return to the United States in 1951, when the celebrated performer, who had found fame and freedom in France, confronted the racial segregation she had fled decades earlier. The film moves between that pivotal period and flashbacks to Baker’s childhood in St. Louis, her meteoric rise in 1920s Paris, her work with the French Resistance during World War II and her later years.
The prestige project marks a considerable leap in scale for Doucouré and ranks among the most ambitious French-produced biopics in years. Studiocanal is co-producing with Bien ou Bien Productions, Doucouré and her partner Zangro’s banner, as well as financing and handling international sales.
Finding the actress who could convey both Baker’s strength and vulnerability proved particularly challenging, even though FKA twigs was among the first performers Doucouré saw during the London leg of her casting search.
Doucouré traveled from London to New York and Los Angeles, auditioning major stars and emerging performers alike. She insisted on seeing candidates perform, regardless of their fame. Each audition included singing, dancing and a demanding dramatic scene.
“I met some incredibly talented actresses, but I couldn’t cast someone just because she was famous or even because I admired her work. I needed to see something very specific, to see Josephine come alive in front of me.”
It happened when twigs showed up. “You could tell she was nervous. You could feel how much it meant to her,” Doucouré recalls.
“I literally started crying because suddenly I was seeing Josephine Baker. I completely forgot that I had written the scene. I forgot that I was sitting in an audition room.”
Although she continued auditioning actresses, Doucouré couldn’t shake the impression twigs had made. “I kept thinking, ‘I found her.’”
The British artist, whose screen credits include “Honey Boy,” “The Crow” and A24’s “Mother Mary,” had never carried a feature of this magnitude. The role demands acting, singing and dancing, with twigs portraying Baker across several decades, performing her songs and speaking French, which she didn’t previously know.
“She also had to learn to speak French in a very short amount of time and master different American accents, even though she’s British,” Doucouré says. “You can’t simply switch from one accent to another. You have to show that evolution naturally.”
Capturing Baker’s distinctive stage presence without merely imitating her was another challenge.
“FKA twigs is an extraordinary performer, but she has her own way of moving, her own musical identity. And Josephine had such a unique physical language. The challenge wasn’t just to reproduce her movements or her voice. It was to understand what made her performances so singular and then make them feel alive rather than imitated.”
Doucouré was determined to showcase twigs’ talents without turning the film into a conventional musical.
“I didn’t want to make a film about Josephine Baker without showing her dancing and singing. Come on, it’s Josephine Baker! And I have FKA twigs. Of course, I’m going to make her dance and sing!”
Bringing Baker’s life to the big screen was a formidable undertaking long before twigs came aboard. Zangro says at least 16 production companies had previously attempted it, while Baker herself had tried to develop a film about her life as far back as 1968.
“The project had been circulating at Canal+ for more than 10 years,” he says. “At the beginning, Maïmouna and I thought we might be a little smarter than everybody else, but we very quickly realized what we’d gotten ourselves into. It was Everest.”
The film spent four years in development, with repeated rewrites, production delays and mounting financial challenges. Baker’s extraordinary life made it difficult to determine what to include.
“At first, I wanted to tell absolutely everything,” Doucouré says. “This woman lived 400 years!”
“She was a pilot. She survived plane crashes. She served during World War II. She was a secret agent. She fought for civil rights. She knew Martin Luther King. She tried to save her château,” says Zangro. “When you read Josephine Baker’s biography, you almost feel like you haven’t lived your own life.”
The breakthrough came when the filmmakers decided to anchor the narrative in one pivotal chapter rather than attempt to chronicle everything.
Doucouré, who co-wrote the screenplay with Olivier Lorelle (“Days of Glory”), spent years researching Baker and working closely with her family. The project has the blessing of her sons Jean-Claude Bouillon Baker and Brian Bouillon Baker, as well as the Rainbow Tribe.
“There are books, of course, but sometimes those books contradict one another. Who better to tell me about Josephine Baker than her own children?” Doucouré says.
Although much of “Josephine Baker” takes place in America, the production is shooting entirely in Europe, with filming in France and Sofia, Bulgaria, through Nov. 13.
The cast also includes Giuseppe Maggio, Grégory Montel, Benjamin Millepied, Féodor Atkine, Alex Lutz and Harmony Raine Riley.
The movie is bound to have a broad international roll-out. Studiocanal will distribute across its own territories, including France, the U.K., Germany, Italy, Benelux, Poland, Australia and New Zealand, and is handling worldwide sales.
“It’s not a French film made for the international market. It’s an international film in every respect, from the cast to the locations and languages,” Zangro says.
Bringing that world to life, however, has required some creative solutions, not least because the film couldn’t afford to shoot in the United States.
“The United States has become too expensive for filming,” Zangro says. “So we’re doing what the Americans themselves are doing. We’re going to Sofia, Bulgaria, where there are backlots where we can recreate Harlem and Broadway.”
The filmmakers have also transformed a parking lot in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis into a street in 1918 St. Louis, complete with brick and stone buildings. Production designer Stéphane Rosenbaum, whose credits include “Moulin,” has had to conjure up everything from Roaring Twenties Paris to 1950s Miami, where a hotel suite was recreated with LED screens providing the exterior views.
“I looked at a lot of photographs for inspiration,” Rosenbaum says. “But we’re not making a documentary, so we also had to invent a visual universe.”
Costume designer Emmanuelle Youchnovski, whose credits include “The Substance” and “Dalida,” has been equally uncompromising.
“We decided to make absolutely everything rather than rent costumes,” she says. “We made the hats, the shoes, even the buttons.”
The production tapped artisans who work with Chanel for buttons and ornaments, commissioned embroidery from workshops in India and enlisted Faubourg 22-11, an atelier associated with Schiaparelli that worked on the famous yellow coat in “The Substance.”
Among the biggest challenges was Baker’s iconic banana skirt, which Youchnovski had to adapt to twigs’ athletic dancer’s physique.
“The banana skirt was a real challenge, let’s not pretend otherwise,” she says. “We made a banana skirt. We didn’t reinvent the wheel. But we approached it a little differently.”
For Doucouré, the costume is also a reminder of Baker’s complicated relationship with the racial stereotypes of her time.
“Of course, you can’t separate the banana skirt from the colonial stereotypes of that time. But what fascinates me is what Josephine did within those constraints. She found ways to play with those stereotypes and sometimes even turn them to her advantage. That’s where I find her so fascinating.”
Baker was also a trendsetter who challenged prevailing beauty standards.
“We’re talking about the colonial era, and white women were trying to look like Josephine Baker,” Doucouré says.
Youchnovski has traced Baker’s evolution from a mischievous young performer to an international star and, later, a more modest figure, using tailored jackets and exaggerated accessories to reflect her willingness to play with masculine and feminine codes.
“The actress absorbs the character and magnifies her. And that’s exactly what FKA twigs is doing. It’s extraordinary,” Youchnovski says.
For Doucouré, Baker’s legacy extends far beyond entertainment. The woman who challenged segregation, fought fascism and built a multiracial family remains a powerful figure amid renewed political and racial divisions.
Doucouré says she has debated whether Baker should be considered a feminist with one of her sons.
“He always tells me, ‘Stop saying my mother was a feminist. Feminism didn’t exist. My mother was a humanist.’”
“And I tell him, ‘Yes, but even if she didn’t necessarily define herself through the labels we use today, your mother challenged so many of the limits imposed on women at the time. To me, that’s deeply feminist.’”
The filmmaker sees a direct connection between Baker’s struggles and the present.
“You look back at history and think, ‘How could people have allowed these things to happen?’ And then you realize that future generations may look back at our own time and ask exactly the same question.”
As filming draws to a close, Doucouré says she likes to imagine Baker herself watching over the production.
“I grew up with the belief that the spirits of our ancestors watch over us. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. But I like to believe that Josephine’s spirit is with us.”
