Meet Charlotte Lindèn Ercoli Coe
A truly multi-disciplinary artist, Charlotte Lindèn Ercoli Coe got her start at a markedly young age. But, that doesn’t mean she wants to hold on to youth or play into how society fetishizes it: the opposite is true. In this interview, she gets into the films and books that have inspired her throughout her life; what starting her new company, Simulacra Pictures, was like; and how things all fall into place when you want something badly enough.
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on her morning routine
I wake up at the crack of dawn and get a cup of coffee. I have gone through phases with local coffee shops like Maru and Dinosaur, but honestly, Starbucks is my favorite place as of a week ago. Sorry. Then I drive back home and sit in my car for an hour, listening to music and game-planning everything I have to do for the rest of the day.
on her california upbringing
I was brought up in Ojai, California, but raised by East Coasters (my mom, stepdad, and step-siblings). And my father is from Italy. My hometown is extremely quaint, and the schools I went to were tiny, prestigious, and outdoor-oriented. At the time, I hated it because I just wanted to make videos and listen to music privately, but looking back, I was so lucky.
I always thought of myself as a thoroughbred Californian because I love the outdoors and am always dangerously relaxed, but I recently realized that New York feels like home more than anywhere else. A couple of weeks ago, my friend from Jersey told me that up until recently, he thought I was “For sure from Manhattan.” Which, whatever that means, I love. I haven’t established a life in Los Angeles. I’ve established shutting myself off from everything Los Angeles has to offer and could be living anywhere because I never leave my house except for coffee and groceries. I just sit in my office working 24 hours a day on whatever I’m doing. Which is just how I like it. I have a beautiful home life with my boyfriend here, and that’s why I stay.
““I have no advice for you because if you care enough, it will work out. The people who aren’t compulsive and obsessed with it are the ones who will go find something else. Natural selection. If it’s for you, just do it. Don’t get hung up on the gear you don’t have. Stop waiting and just make stuff. I had an incredible experience studying post-production at Santa Monica College, but since then, I have learned that Youtube and other people who have more experience are your best resources.””
on her early ambitions in film
Very, very early on, I think I just wanted to be Audrey Hepburn, whatever that meant. At around 8 years old, when I got an iMac with a camera, I just wanted to direct movies (and later, I got a Panasonic tape camera, which was a game-changer). I grew up looking forward to occasional trips to Los Angeles, where I’d get to visit my aunt and uncle, Joe Hutshing, a successful and talented film editor. They lived in the Palisades overlooking the ocean in a home filled with a profound collection of art, music, and movies. Every time I’d go, they would have an enormous queue of things they wanted me to ingest. They completely shaped my taste. My uncle is also the smartest and funniest man in the world, and I always wanted to be exactly like him.
At around 13 or 14, I discovered this website Joseph Gordon Levitt started which was marketed as an ”open production company” anybody could submit to. I started churning out editing work for them and getting paid for it, which was a wonderful feeling. At 16, I started interning at the first post-production company in my town. It seemed like a miracle and impossible that it could exist there, which it didn’t for long. I remember they left me alone for two weeks to run the place so my boss and everybody else could go to Burning Man. Not the best business model.
on her music
I didn’t think about making music until high school and never identified as a musician. I'd always felt I had no right to be making it. Initially, my uncle showed me an app called Polychord that enables you to make electronic music, and I used it to make my first song. The song had some stupid name like “Cherry Pie”; I was eating a lot of it around that time at Carrows, which does not exist in my town anymore since LA hipsters have invaded it (R.I.P.). Now, I miss making music SO deeply and cannot wait to make more. I need to remind myself I am not “running out of time” and that what's telling me I am is just societal pressure and fetishization of my youth.
on navigating bad work experiences and starting her own company
After working for free and putting everything into my videos in college, I quickly had people knocking on my door for bigger directing jobs and enjoyed freelancing for a while. Then suddenly, out of fear, I decided to start my career over and go “the corporate route.” I did that for 2 years but was put in an extremely unfortunate situation that ultimately led to me having to quit. It is and was the most horrible thing I’ve experienced professionally. I feel bad because I spent my whole life ignoring women's issues, maybe out of insecurity, because I didn’t want to admit that they were real, that I was different than a man, or be associated with “weakness.” It was so small-minded and creepy of me.
I froze when the incident happened and acted extremely forgiving and accommodating. I stayed a year longer because I was so afraid I wouldn't find other work, which they told me. That was nonsense, and the second I applied elsewhere, people were practically begging me to come work for them. I truly regret not leaving immediately. There are so many idiots in this town and world, and I’m so happy it’s becoming unacceptable. I cannot tell you how to avoid these situations, but if they come up, say something and leave. My advice here is to not operate out of fear, undermine yourself, or waste your time in life. There is always another job.
That experience inspired fire within me. This past February, I decided to start my own company. Now I direct commercials and movies full time, and it has been the most fun and beautiful phase of my life so far. Time to be brave and just do it.
““My only motivation is entertaining myself. Having souvenirs of different points in my life is like scrapbooking. When I see a video I’ve made, I just start laughing as I remember the hilarious, fun time I had making it with my friends. All the inside jokes, the dangerous and nuts situations. It’s fantastic to have a MOVIE at the end of that to remember it by. On the other hand, music is something I do very privately to capture and remember the more maudlin times. It’s all selfish, and for me.””
on how she casts her film subjects
I find my subjects because I love human beings and am so easily amused. Whether we realized it or not, my sister and I have always operated as an unofficial casting department, street casting people, or using friends. We'd get people’s numbers in 7/11’s or on the street and make little videos of them. For the first time in my life, I directed a film with someone I had never met as the lead actor. I spent 3 months prepping him for this film in New York, but unfortunately, as he was homeless and a drug addict, it fell through 2 days before his flight into town. I had to get someone else and took a gamble on Stephen Gurewitz, a stranger my DP Alex Huggins recommended. He’s my BFF now. Everything always works out for me somehow, and I don’t know why. Probably because I don’t really care about anything in life, and at the end of the day, I just want to make things and am happy if that’s the case.
on how she unwinds and learns about film
I’m always working because I am a suicide bomber for my stupid projects, but at the end of a long day, I love to cook dinner for everyone in my household and zone out to some television. I am an insanely good cook. I am the most domesticated person alive. As for TV: Friends, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Larry Sanders Show, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and any spinoffs like Bachelor in Paradise. You name it. I’m an ordinary man.
I recently discovered The Ion Pack. Their interviews are super entertaining. I’m a big fan of being a fan; there are a couple people who I really look up to and have listened to every interview they've ever done multiple times. Even more so than watching movies, that’s kind of how I study filmmaking and how I spent much of quarantine. Those people feel like my best friends to me now. It’s pretty sad, actually; I was in a bad place during quarantine, looking at Instagram too often. It gave me brain damage, and I found out anorexia is back in style. There is no way Robert Altman wasted brain space trying to angle his legs in a selfie so it looked like he had a thigh gap. Listening to interviews with my favorite filmmakers just kept me in check and reminded me of who I am and who I want to be. Anyways, they really are my best friends even if they don’t know me too well. #RupertPupkin
on the most challenging part of being in her 20s
The rose-tinted glasses start to turn brown, and it's challenging reconciling with reality. I feel very prematurely angry about things I'm going to experience when I'm not in my 20s. I see how people value my youth, and it makes me anxious and sad. I feel like I have way less time than a biological man for people to care about me, which depresses me greatly. I hope people can like my work enough and that is enough. It’s scary.
on her style
I find inhabiting a physical form unbearable. I feel very torn down the middle. I don’t think of myself as a girl and feel very androgynous and confused. Even if I look like a moron, I feel the cutest and most confident in my middle school basketball shorts or slacks with sneakers. The other half of me aspires and gravitates towards femininity, but that’s not what I want to put out to the world. Every time I try to plan an outfit, I ask myself, "would I look pathetic if I died wearing this?" That’s why I wear pants and a t-shirt because it’s safe.
My best friend is the designer behind L'école des Femmes and makes the only clothes I like. She reinvents classic uniform looks, and it perfectly blends my boyish and girlish sides. She is the master.
on her beauty routine
My mom and aunt are beauty industry senseis, so I basically get given boatloads of products all the time. Hilariously, I do almost nothing, though. Not because I'm soooo amazing and just don’t need to. The opposite. I had the worst acne in human history until 3 years ago but have gone on Spironolactone and dropped some dough on medical skin treatments. Feeling like I don’t have to go through the charade of covering my skin in the morning is a long-awaited mental vacation for me, and I am basking in that. Occasionally, I will use RMS Beauty's "un" cover up for a spot or to even out skin tone. I comb my brows and do a little bit of lip liner from time to time. I love tinting my eyelashes. I love “investing” in skin health and things that last a long time, so I don’t have to think about it.
charlotte’s favorite books
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut is so so SO funny. I steal a couple lines from this book almost daily. I even put one in my script… No one will ever know which one unless they are both a die-hard fan of him and me, which will never happen. America by Jean Baudrillard, and Without Feathers by Woody Allen, are also both hilarious. And the amusing Success by Martin Amis.
charlotte’s favorite spots in los angeles
I really meant it when I said I don't go anywhere; I recommend you stay home. Okay, fine, there is a place called Sushi Yen that is inexpensive and incredible. In my last interview, I said it was in a Ralphs parking lot, which was a lie—it’s in an Albertsons parking lot. I also love the Salmon Bowl at Forage: perfect brown rice with egg kale, sweet pickled radishes, and salmon. And, I obviously have to give my friends who are the masterminds behind Courage Bagels a shoutout. Go to my dad's hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant Cafe Delfini, too. He’ll wait your table and try to make you laugh.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this interview contained offensive language, which our publication does not condone, so it has been removed.
images by clémence polès