#PASSION: IN CONVERSATION WITH LUCKY LOVE

“YOU CAN TRY AS MUCH AS YOU WANT TO PROTECT YOURSELF WITH ALL THESE LAYERS, BUT GAINING CONFIDENCE IN YOURSELF IS LIKE A STRIPTEASE. YOU HAVE TO TAKE OFF ALL THE CLOTHES AND GET NAKED.”

Luc Bruyère is a man transformed by creativity. His beauty, elegance and fierce poetry form the fine-wrought signet of the artist Lucky Love. Across film, fashion, music and dance, his work is recognizable by that hallmark at a single glance. An overnight icon, his debut EP Tendresse and its cornerstone anthem “Masculinity” scored the runways of Gucci and Margiela. At 31, the French multihy-
phenate is only just getting started.

Damien Cummings Dancer. Singer. Model. Actor. Who is Lucky Love to you?

Lucky Love Lucky Love is everything I’ve been waiting for. He’s this persona that came with this music and the result of everything I’ve learned in my life. I don’t know if he’s a complete character, but he uses all my skills as an actor, dancer, writer, singer and director. I wanted to create this persona that would allow me to explore everything I have to say. For me, it’s important to create a dream, a character that allows people to get access to my universe. So, Lucky Love is just a character that helps me be everything I want to be.

How close is Luc Bruyère to Lucky Love?

It’s really funny because just yesterday I rewatched The Mask with Jim Carrey and I realized that that’s happening to me with Lucky Love. It’s harder and harder to take off the mask because Luc Bruyère is embracing all that Lucky Love allows me to. I love to embody this character. I would say that there is not that much difference between me and Lucky Love. Lucky Love allowed me to show myself as vulnerable in ways I couldn’t imagine or think were possible a few years ago and I’m getting addicted to it.

“So, Lucky Love is just a character that helps me be everything I want to be.”
How has creativity helped you grow into an identity that you’re comfortable with?

I’ve always served ideas since I was a child. I began dancing at the age of five, so I’ve always been at the service of the writing of someone else. As a dancer, you are the material of the choreographer, which they use to build this invisible architecture through your body. It helped me because I could look through my movements and see what made my individuality, and what made me who I was as a dancer. Then, I met fashion through modeling when I was around 17. It helped me build my image of this character that I wanted to understand. What is my universe? What is my style? I have this souvenir of a moment with the photographer Craig McDean, when he transformed me into Robert Mapplethorpe for Vogue. Suddenly, I was surrounded by all these artistic references and it allowed me to grow into my character authentically. I think that being surrounded by creative energy my entire life has helped me a lot to know precisely who I want to be.

How do you control the impact fame has on your emotions?

It’s good to remember that I got here by embracing vulnerability and being true to myself and others. Especially when you are in front of all these people screaming your name and celebrating you. It made me understand that if you accept vulnerability, then you can finally live a happy life. So, I’m happier and happier thanks to Lucky Love, because I use all the skills from Lucky, to serve in Luc’s life. At the same time, fame has been something kind of crazy that I didn’t expect at all. Sometimes, Lucky is a refuge and a safe place for me, but I also have to extract myself from it to come back to my real life. You can’t be just one thing as a human being. Sometimes I get lost in Lucky Love, but other times he’ll show me the way.

“You can’t be just one thing as a human being. Sometimes I get lost in Lucky Love, but other times he’ll show me the way.”
Your work across disciplines has a real consistency to it. Do you have a sense of what is at the core of your passion for creativity?

For me, the mission of the artist is to be a witness of his time and to relate to the world in the present moment. I want to give a representation of this world through my eyes. But, that doesn’t mean it’s about me personally. I think that what I love about pop music is that it’s universal. I’ve never wanted to just make music for my people. I want to reach everyone. I want to reach the old lady. I want to reach the kids and the housewife. I want to reach the fags that are going to Berghain every night. I want to reach all these people and bring them together because I think that’s what’s beautiful in music.

How do you know when you’ve created something that you think might have that impact?

I always ask myself about the way I do that. It’s a bit strange, but I was born without my left arm and I am gay. So, of course, my childhood and teenage years were not that easy. I was pretty alone and being different doesn’t help when you’re a kid. For me, music was a safe place, and some songs from Nirvana or Amy Winehouse specifically really changed my life or even saved it. So, when I create, I try to connect with this young self and think if I would have been happy to have that song. I want my music to help people to acknowledge their feelings. For example, Masculinity is my most personal song. But, what I loved is that when Masculinity came out, it quickly became a crazy anthem. First, for the queer transmasc community in the United States who took that song and made it theirs, but at one point, it went to Iran. I received all these messages from soldiers who have been hurt in the war. People missing legs or arms told me that this song helped them reconnect with their sense of masculinity after injuries and after the war. These two worlds are so different, but they are connected by one song, by one idea, and they make their own story. That’s the power of music and that is why I always try to connect with my inner self, my inner child to guide me.

In your 2022 film, Lucky, you say: “I don’t expect acceptance from others, I take it.” What allowed you to start actively combatting stigma in your life?

I think it came with the experience of creating. As soon as I allowed myself to show my feelings, I saw that people were celebrating it and it felt so freeing. It was this huge relief. I think of my process like wearing layers and layers of clothes. I understood that you can try as much as you want to protect yourself with all these layers, but gaining confidence in yourself is like a striptease. You have to take off all the clothes and get naked. And, I love this feeling. It became addictive to me, this notion that I’m falling, hoping for someone to grab me just before I hit the floor because sometimes, in this moment, you’re surprised because you find yourself flying. To me, that’s what being an artist is.

How comfortable are you using your new platform as your career has grown so quickly?

That’s the scary thing, but it’s also exciting. Of course, it’s been
scary. I mean, I got famous because of one video on TikTok. It’s weird because when you get famous online, you see all these numbers and you can’t believe it because they’re just numbers until the first time you get on stage. After that, when you hear people screaming your name, then it becomes real, and then it also becomes scary because with great power comes great responsibility. For me, though, the only scary thing is I don’t want to disappoint people. I became famous with Masculinity, and I know that song is a refuge and a safe space for so many people.
So, I couldn’t come back with some meaningless pop song. I am an artist who looks for meaning and having that fame while I’m still experimenting is an added pressure. But, at the same time, I just came back from working on my album in Los Angeles and I know that some of those songs came out of my audience. Their thoughts gave me questions and they provoked things in me that I would never ask myself if I didn’t have this fame coming this fast. It’s a really interesting thing, this relationship with fans, and I love being this figure. Singing is like a love story. You give, not expecting to get anything in return. And then, when it happens, it’s just the best day of your life.

“I understood that you can try as much as you want to protect yourself with all these layers, but gaining confidence in yourself is like a striptease. You have to take off all the clothes and get naked.”
You’ve often said that you’re a melancholic person. How do you harness that to find your passion?

Melancholia is the best feeling. I’m French, we were born mel- ancholic. But truly, it’s a beautiful feeling. Melancholia allows you to zoom out and get a new perspective on the very intense thing you might have experienced. It could be a love story, a heartbreak, a friendship, or it could be your relationship with the world. Melancholia is the humility of zooming out, accepting the beauty that you just lived, the beauty of the moment, and celebrating it. You realize that what you’ve just lived is magical and beautiful and it’s already gone. And you realize that’s why it’s beautiful. If I was always happy or I was always in love, I couldn’t write because I wouldn’t have a question. My entire job consists of asking questions. I don’t care about the answer. For me, the answer is the end and I want a lot of beginnings, I don’t want the ending. I’ve been living my life that way even through death. I often speak about death as something that is here to just give us life. I’m not scared to die or anything, but I’m so happy to be alive that I want to celebrate it all the time. Melancholia is the place where I can extract myself, pause and think, if I had to sum up all these experiences, what would I say?

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