Here’s something random: Rachel Bilson is starring in ads for Magnum ice cream alongside Baptiste Giabiconi, directed by Karl Lagerfeld, that will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in honor of the brand’s U.S. debut. You can imagine why Bilson wanted the role. “Obviously there’s the Karl of it all, which is a no-brainer,” she told us by phone today while waiting for a flight out to North Carolina, where she’ll shoot a pilot called Heart of Dixie. “That was definitely a huge thing that lured me in.” Bilson had met Karl, but never worked with him. “He told me a funny little anecdote that Cecil B. DeMille, the old-time directors, used to show you what they wanted — they’d act it out. So Karl would walk and do the motions that he wanted me to do.”
In one of the three vignettes, Bilson plays the ballerina girlfriend to Baptiste. “Apparently he’s a very big model. I recognized him once I met him from shows and walking — he’s always with Karl. He was really sweet too — obviously a very good-looking person. He’s so young! He’s only 21.” Bilson, unfortunately, had not seen Baptiste’s debut music video, “Showtime.” “I learned that he’s a musician. I think he’s excited about that — he doesn’t speak English so well, but not a lot of talking was necessary,” explains Bilson, who witnessed lots of interactions between Baptiste and Karl. “It seems like a father-son relationship. It seems like Karl really looks after him and takes him under his wing. It was really sweet.” So is she going to stay in touch with him now that the shoot is over? “I’m more interested in keeping in touch with Karl!” She made sure to give Karl’s assistant her e-mail address. Lucky for her, Karl gave her some free Chanel loot on set. “He was so funny — he was writing down something on this Chanel notepad, and he was like, ‘Do you want it?,’” Bilson said. “And I took it so fast he laughed at me, so I got a Chanel notepad from Karl. And my friend was with me — she was like, ‘Can I at least have a piece of paper from it?’ I was like, ‘Absoluely not.’”
