Caroline Castaing

I was born in 1976, great year for red wine, Romanian gymnasts and neurotic advertising minds. Even if the death of Higgins, my childhood hamster, was excruciating, it was not material to build a tortured rock star career on. I started advertising rehab: a few years on McDonald's account at TBWA. A few years of TV communication for M6 TV Network. And for the last 5 years, NEW (BBDO group). Seeking for immortality. But as Woody Allen said: I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying. I don’t have a tormented rock career and I don’t have kids either, so I don’t have a bigger purpose in my life. I decided I would have to find another way to make a contribution to the world. So I try to leave my print (preferably not a carbon foot one) with my actions. Not to be remembered, but to participate in making a better world, and to make my presence on earth as meaningful as possible. My theory is that there are 3 areas to make a contribution : - Heal (and help) - Teach (and transmit) - Create (and entertain) I make it a point to try everyday to contribute in one (if not all) of these ways. More than my job, it’s the other accomplishments I feel for. I wrote a screenplay. It took me 3 years. I don’t know if it will break through, but regardless of the outcome, it taught me patience and perseverance. I also accomplished a full seven years therapy. Some would say that it’s more an accomplishment for my therapist (and some would be right), but I’m an optimist, and I think my contribution was substantial. In the end, it open my mind on human psyche. And a ballad in other people’s shoes is never without merit. I am nuts about the human brain. Which is quite odd when you know that I’m not a scientist. At all. I would love to get an MRI and hang it in my living room, and I would do it if it wasn’t incredibly stupid and unbelievably irresponsible for the health care system. So I watch every documentary, read every book I can get my hands on, and search like crazy. I watch TED talks over and over again (Oliver Sacks, Jill Bolte Taylor...). And one day, I was watching a documentary called « Journey to the centre of the brain ». One of the interviewees was a neuroscientist, Alan Snyder, creator of the Centre for the Mind at the University of Sydney. His interview was so compelling that at the end of the documentary, I went online and I sent him an email to tell him that I would love to meet him to ask him the zillion questions I had on the human brain, to make my screenplay as accurate as it’s entertaining. He answered the next day and agreed to meet me. The week after, I flew to Sydney (and I live in Paris, France). Curiosity, knowledge, meeting different people this is definitely what makes me tick. Well it made me fly half the planet for 58 hours, to have a 2 hours meeting. So worth it. And I love writing. I also love jazz, TV series, computers (especially the fruity ones), carrot cakes and French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Not necessarily in that order. Here I am.

TV series. I'm not very proud of that. But I love series. From House MD to True Blood, from Nurse Jackie to Mad men, from The West Wing (the best ever) to Lost. And I love Radiohead, yeah Oxford!

Writing columns, singing depressing jazz songs, cooking for 10 people, playing with kids.