Photographer Eric James Guillemain took us behind the scenes of the biggest film sets

The book Backstage Dreams brings together 200 photographs captured by French photographer Eric James Guillemain on film sets over 15 years of documenting moments behind the scenes, but it is much more than a backstage diary. 

Nervous movements cloaked in anticipation, a deep breath that magically rearranges thoughts, or a gaze lost in a labyrinth of worries, doubts, and questions – our lives are made up of millions of moments that last only a few seconds, yet we feel as if the entire universe is imprinted within them, often slipping by unnoticed. French photographer Eric James Guillemain, a visionary with the soul of a storyteller, captured just these moments and translated them into his first monograph, Backstage Dreams. But although it may seem that way at first, Backstage Dreams is not just a collection of photographs of familiar faces taken behind the scenes – it is a meditation on transience, an intimate, contemplative journey in which the backstage becomes a metaphor for the way we observe the world and ourselves.

Backstage Dreams, to be published in the spring in collaboration with Damiani Books, brings 200 works taken on film sets, encompassing 15 years of Guillemain’s photography career. Its black-and-white pages, carefully curated to tell a story, offer a window into what usually remains hidden – the intimate and vulnerable moments of actors before stepping into the hive of cameras, when, without expecting anyone to observe, their authenticity shines through, not their role. Yet Guillemain’s perspective is not that of a photographer wanting to stage a spectacle with his presence, but of the invisible man – the one who is not part of the story, who willingly excludes himself from it, but who, precisely because of this, can capture its essence.

In his studio in New York and mine in Zagreb, with a six-hour time difference between us, we ended up in front of the cameras talking about the book, letting the conversation flow in a direction I never could have predicted.

Born in Morocco and raised in Paris, Guillemain spent his youth on stage, initially acting in theater productions, and later as the frontman of the French rock band Venice. Music brought him to New York at the start of the millennium, but life, as unpredictable as it often is, placed him behind the camera instead of under the spotlight. For years, he assisted renowned photographer Peter Lindbergh, but Guillemain’s journey into the world of behind-the-scenes photography actually began by chance – at the last minute, he replaced a colleague who had fallen ill and suddenly found himself in an unfamiliar world. He learned as he went, day by day, not thinking too much about technicalities, allowing himself to be instinctive and simply be present. It was this spontaneity and immediacy that shaped his style: unfiltered photographs, moments captured without the intention of perfection, but honest and alive. Reflecting on the book, he realized that he didn’t want to fill the pages with photographs that were merely visually pleasing or boastfully decorated with his best works. He wanted it to reflect who he is, while taking the viewer on a journey in which they too would dive into introspection and find a deeper meaning in them.

“When I was selecting the photographs for the book, I was searching for my own story, for myself, and then I began to think about what backstage means to me. That was the moment when the book began to take on a philosophical, and sometimes even religious, significance,” he says, pausing briefly to gauge from my expression whether I will understand. As I nod, sensing where the story may lead, Guillemain continues, his voice filled with the joy of important realizations: “For me, backstage is not just a physical space; to be backstage means to be outside of everything that’s happening. Backstage, I’m the guy no one wants to see. I’m the invisible man. When you’re not part of something, it can hurt, but it didn’t hurt me, I just observed, without participating in anything.” This is, he says, the reason why he added the subtitle The Secret Door to Sets.

At that moment, I’m struck by how his role as an impartial observer strongly reminds me of the meditative technique I use when, amidst the noise of my own thoughts and the chaos of various worries, I forget to breathe and lose track of where I am. “That position of the observer was another way for me to freeze time. In the middle of all that chaos, when everyone is stressed and wants everything to be perfect, I catch that small moment when everything feels calm. I wanted to be the hero who erases that, who makes people stop and feel. There is something eternal in all of this, a moment of contemplation, something bigger than the hustle and bustle. The idea is simple: I wanted everyone to just stop for a moment.” Striving to capture a moment of peace in the chaos, he realized that he didn’t want to stop time for others alone, but for himself as well. In the tumult of nervous haste, noise, anticipation, and anxiety, he saw that he too needed to breathe and pause – no matter how big and important everything around him seemed.

In Backstage Dreams, time is fluid. It begins and ends with nature, where we feel freer and more ourselves than in the hustle and bustle, and then it moves between sets, searching for those rare moments of stillness, filled with genuine emotions, free from artificially constructed roles. On its pages, we encounter actors and artists in their most intimate moments: Helen Mirren, Nick Cave, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert Pattinson, Sigourney Weaver, Isabelle Huppert, Charlize Theron, Julianne Moore, and many others. However, Guillemain doesn’t celebrate their untouchable star status – he celebrates the moment. And in all of this, he seeks the universal, what matters beyond the film sets. “I want people to experience this book in their own way – as a journey, as a meditation, as something more than a collection of beautiful photographs. It’s an invitation to take time, to look around, to be just ourselves for a moment. To travel and breathe.”

“I don’t care about missed shots, that’s not important to me. I don’t want my mind to get in the way, to be burdened by my own thoughts,” he tells me, recalling how sometimes, amidst the chaos of film sets, his attention was drawn to something not part of the “official” script but was part of his experience – a sign reading “I Love You” on a neighboring building or his son playing with birds a little further away. I ask him if that photograph is his favorite in the book. “Yes, because it’s personal, but it’s hard to pick a favorite – it’s a journey, a synergy between the photographs. Opposite the boy with the birds is a photo of Anya Taylor-Joy, looking somewhat melancholically through a window, and there’s Marianne Faithfull behind a fogged glass. These photos form a whole, and together they contribute to the atmosphere, encouraging the viewer to tell a story about them,” he explains. What matters is not the photograph itself but the feeling it evokes, the story that makes you stop and look at it, even if just for a moment.