Fabrice Luchini, you are expected this Tuesday, August 22, 2023 in Angoulême, where ” The little “, your latest film, is screened at the opening of the 16th Francophone Film Festival. This festival, you know it well. You were part of the very first edition in 2008…
I had been invited by Dominique Besnehardet nobody can decline an invitation from Dominique Besnehard! At the time, he was this influential agent, a key figure in French cinema. So yes, I did some cinema at his festival. I never imagined…
Fabrice Luchini, you are expected this Tuesday, August 22, 2023 in Angoulême, where ” The little “, your latest film, is screened at the opening of the 16th Francophone Film Festival. This festival, you know it well. You were part of the very first edition in 2008…
I had been invited by Dominique Besnehard and no one can decline an invitation from Dominique Besnehard! At the time, he was this influential agent, a key figure in French cinema. So yes, I did some cinema at his festival. I never imagined that the event would become so important and substantial.
That summer, you gave of yourself. You accompanied Cédric Klapisch during an outdoor session on the Place du Champ-de-Mars and you harangued the crowd!
We need to be more shy! Actors who control themselves, who save themselves, very little for me. I never do things by halves.
Cédric Klapisch, Dominique Besnehard and Fabrice Luchini, on August 29, 2008, during the very first edition of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival (FFA).
Isabelle Louvier/“South West” Archives
The masterclass you’ll be hosting at the theater on Wednesday sold out in less than a week after the box office opened. Is it exciting or intimidating?
Intimidating ? No, I’m happy about it. I will speak in front of cinema and theater enthusiasts; answer their questions without knowing it; tell them of the extraordinary happiness in the life of a man to have a vocation.
What topics will you cover?
I will talk about the difficulty of saying the texts, of reading La Fontaine’s fables without betraying them, of trying to be as close as possible to what the author wanted to say. All these questions haunt me in a neurotic and almost obsessive way. I will be happy to share them, to confide…
The poster for the film “La Petite” by Guillaume Nicloux, previewed on Tuesday August 22, 2023, at the opening of the 16th Angoulême Francophone Film Festival (FFA). Release in France scheduled for September 20.
Kiosk Films/SND
Let’s talk about the film “La Petite”, directed by Guillaume Nicloux. What interested you in this story of a father confronted with the mourning of his son and the meeting of a surrogate mother whose services he had requested?
You know, when I have lunch with people in their sixties, I am flabbergasted by the light, by the brightness, by the incredible peace of my interlocutors who have become grandparents. They all say: “It’s extraordinary, it has given us a boost. “I have not yet had the chance and happiness to experience the arrival of a grandchild. “La Petite” deals with this beautiful subject, beyond the judicious questions it asks about surrogacy. Guillaume Nicloux was able to capture the power of this moment when the grandchild arrives and what it can provoke in a misanthropic and closed man, who did not have a good relationship with his son.
This character, you interpret it with delicacy and restraint. Was it a request from the director?
A good director – and Guillaume Nicloux is one – doesn’t film an actor’s performance. He films a being. Louis Jouvet said: “An actor is never more than the actor of the man he is. In the cinema, if you want to provoke a little emotion, you have to play without playing, which requires a lot of technique and work that the viewer doesn’t care about! The airport scene, where the character understands that he will never see his son again, took me two months of preparation.
“La Petite” questions more love than morality. Do you share this point of view?
Yes, the film is neither for nor against surrogacy. It is in the immanence, in the urgency of the present: a child arrives, it must be welcomed!
Back to Angouleme. It was here, in the provinces, in the prefecture of Charente, that you were spotted in 1968. Tell us…
I was 16 years old, I was an apprentice hairdresser and I had little vocation for brushing. I preferred rhythm and blues, James Brown, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. On Saturdays, I would go dancing at the Whiskey à gogo. One evening, I was offered to participate in the opening of a discotheque in Angoulême, in the whole premier Drugstore de province. I asked permission from my boss and off I went for a two-week trip. The evening of the inauguration of the box, a journalist questions me. It’s Philippe Labro, who quotes me in one of his articles and then offers me, a few months later, to appear in a scene of his first film “Everything can happen”. I play, instinctively, without asking myself any questions, then I go back to hairdressing, with even less desire. Later, a producer introduces me to Éric Rohmer and my life takes a different path. It’s true, without Angoulême, there wouldn’t have been Labro, Rohmer, Chabrol and the others. Without Angoulême, I wouldn’t be here talking to you!
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