Eric James Guillemain

For more than 15 years now, Eric James Guillemain has been able to photograph many of the world’s most famous actors.

Sometimes it’s on a movie set. Sometimes it’s for a high-profile advertising campaign or maybe a magazine.

His upcoming book, “Backstage Dreams,” takes you behind the scenes of these shoots, pulling back the curtain to reveal intimate moments that many people never get to see.

Maybe they happen between takes. Or in the dressing room. He’s always looking for the unexpected.

“A good photograph can happen every single second,” Guillemain said in an interview with CNN. “It's either you sit and have a coffee and you wait for action, or you don't sit, you don't have a coffee. You just wander around with your camera and you open yourself to whatever is going to happen.”

Guillemain got his start almost by accident. He was working as an assistant for renowned photographer Peter Lindbergh — carrying lenses and bags, helping with the lighting and other on-set duties — when someone called out sick. Guillemain was asked to fill in as a backstage photographer and take photos of what was happening on set.

He didn’t have any experience, and it was all very instinctive for him at first. But he liked it very much.

“I was disappearing in the shade, dressed in black,” he recalled. “Nobody was looking at me. I was just hiding and observing. It was a thing I really enjoyed. It was stressful, because you have to deliver the pictures that you're asked for. But I was somehow more free.”

By being a fly on the wall, Guillemain was able to capture unscripted moments. Moments where actors would briefly let down their guard. Moments where they could be seen pausing, waiting, thinking, reflecting.

It was an approach, a sensation, that Guillemain wanted to bring to his own shoots when he started branching out on his own and building his portfolio in fashion photography.

“Any time I had a little moment in between takes — anytime I was feeling like, oh, this is not supposed to be the picture or the situation — I wanted to just find a moment when I was in a backstage situation,” he said. “Like I'm observing. I'm not the guy in charge here. I'm just observing what's happening.”

There’s no perfect recipe, he said, to finding these photos, but he has some techniques he likes to use. Maybe he’ll leave the set briefly and then use a long lens to photograph the subject from afar. Maybe he’ll appear at the last minute or from part of the set where he’s not expected to be. The idea is to take a step back from the original plan and find something authentic. Authenticity is key.

“For me, it's never been a question of great lighting and stuff like that,” Guillemain said. “I really understood that when the moment is happening, when things are getting super natural, super lively, then the lights, or whatever the technique is, it is going to align. It's like, the light is looking bad and then suddenly it looks really great. Why? Because something is happening. The magic is happening.”

Working on the set of a movie or a commercial can be a drag, at least for a photographer. The days can be long, boring and miserable. Guillemain remembers one shoot in particular, photographing Charlize Theron in the California desert.

“It was just heavy wind, and sand was everywhere,” he said. “Like after two seconds, your gear was covered with sand. And it was so hot.”

There can also be a lot of tension on sets, he said, with everyone so focused on their jobs, trying to get the perfect shot in sometimes less-than-ideal circumstances.

“And you don't have a break,” he said of his job. “Not a single break. You don't know when (the action) is going to happen. At any time, you're supposed to be ready to shoot. Is it going to be in five minutes? Is it going to be in an hour? I don't know. I need to be ready in an instant.”

Guillemain will kill time by photographing what’s around him. Maybe the actor or the director isn’t ready, but that doesn’t mean he puts down his camera. He’ll often photograph his surroundings, finding interesting details on set or on location.

“There's always something happening,” he said. “A lot of the pictures inside the book, I took them while waiting.”

“Backstage Dreams” brings together photos from the last 15 years of Guillemain’s career, which has taken him all over the world. Most of the photos are in black and white. Guillemain chose that presentation, he said, because it makes the images feel more authentic, powerful and timeless. There’s also a dreamlike quality to them.

“I wanted to have this notion through the pictures where sometimes I don't really understand what's going on,” he said. “It's driving me to this place and this mood and I don't know why and I want to follow this. … It's unexpected. It's weird. But sometimes I think it's necessary to just let yourself dream and follow a new logic. It's necessary to abandon yourself into the dream.”

Guillemain said he’s enjoyed working with all of the actors over the years and that everyone has their own approach on set. Some are very focused on the job. Others, he said, are more chill.

“Sometimes they laugh, sometimes they joke in between takes,” he said. ”But most of the time, what I've experienced, it's a serious thing. It's a lot of money. You don't want to lose time.”

He appreciates the professionalism but loves it when his subjects allow themselves to joke or laugh or have a little fun.

“I think it's necessary, because if you want to do something authentic and true, I think you need to let yourself go sometimes,” he said.

Guillemain said he got to work with many actors before they became super famous, such as Anya Taylor-Joy, who he photographed after she starred in the 2015 movie “The Witch.”

“She was so sweet and so clever to shoot,” he remembers. “She was so natural, so down-to-earth and cooperative and creative.”

Another favorite from the book is Norman Reedus: “He was a really great guy. I really loved to work with him. He's super accessible, simple, warm and agreeable to talk with.”

And Guillemain loves photographing Léa Seydoux and Isabelle Huppert, who are French like him.

“For (Huppert), it's not a chore to be photographed,” he said. “She enjoyed it so much. She gives a lot, even for simple pictures. She takes initiative. She's a pleasure to work with.”

Behind-the-scenes photos seem to be more popular than ever these days, Guillemain said.

“I think it's a quest for authenticity. It's a quest for getting closer to what's happening,” he said. “People want to get more access. They don't want to be closer. They don't want to be just a consumer, to just see a movie or something. No, you want to be more than that. You want to be a part of it.”

To this day, he’s still drawn to behind-the-scenes photos from Stanley Kubrick’s films and considers them to be a perfect example of backstage photos done right. He just hopes it doesn’t become something that’s expected every time as part of a movie or a show’s prepackaged promotional content.

“It's a good thing until it's not,” he said. “If it's going to be the job, it's not behind the scenes, it's not my idea of backstage anymore. It's not special. …

“I just hope that this kind of trend is not going to kill the magic of it. It’s a craft. It needs to be interesting. It needs to be the cherry on top.”