During the summer, each week Objectif Gard offers you the “I would have liked” section. A personality from the Gard tells us what she would have liked to practice as another profession. This Tuesday, it’s comedian Youssef Hajdi’s turn.
Born in Tarascon, Youssef Hajdi, very young, crossed the Rhône and thus lived his childhood in the Gard, in Beaucaire. As far back as he can remember, singing and dancing was his first childhood dream. “It’s a bit like that I expressed myself from an early age. Dancing was my first way to exist.“So the young Youssef feeds on videos of Michael Jackson and James Brown that he imitates, imagining himself on a stage, in front of an audience.
But as he grows up, an awareness tears him away from this dream. “In American culture, you can be a dancer and a singer at the same time, but that’s not French culture. In France, we are either a dancer and behind an artist. Either we are a singer and we are ahead, but we do not have “performers” like Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce or other artists in this genre who can combine the two disciplines.“
“This job has changed my life […]”
So, Youssef Hajdi continues his path. On the benches of the Saint-Vincent de Paul high school in Nîmes, he meets Françoise Lelouch, teacher. “She still teaches there. I remember, she always took the time to talk to me during intercourse. And she always told me that I was made for the acting profession.“The young Beaucairois, put everything down.”I went to Paris to embark on this profession which changed my life and which makes me a happy man today.“At the height of his 20 years, he draws his inspiration from his various professional experiences.”I worked in computer telephony, in catering, on the markets of Beaucaire, Tarascon, etc., I was a real estate agent. All this taught me, through contact with humans, to create my personality, to also develop an ability to identify people and to be a sponge of what is represented in our society.“
“The passion to tell the human story […]”
But through his art, it is ultimately all the trades that Youssef Hajdi can approach. “I can tell the story of people who are socially distant from me. There is above all the passion and the enjoyment of being able to tell the human story and also the responsibility of telling social facts and sometimes bringing lightness to them through comedy.“On Tuesday September 8 on M6, you will discover the actor from Beaucair in the role of a judo teacher in”Learn to love you“from Stéphanie Pillonca-Kervern, with Ari Abittan and Julie de Bona as well as and above all Camille, the little Nîmoise with Down’s syndrome, whom we had met with her parents in October 2019.
“It’s an extraordinary film, lance Youssef Heidi. I had the chance to work with children with Down’s syndrome and I might as well tell you that we are very small next to this immense love that they are able to transmit to us. There is no filter with them, not these social filters that we impose on ourselves. It was a heartbreaking shoot. Stéphanie Pillonca-Kervern is an extraordinary woman. If Ary Abittan is on this film, if we were able to tell this film in this way, if we approached this theme which has been taboo for years on TV, it is thanks to her.“
Projects multiply
Youssef Hajdi is currently playing in Michaël Youn’s film, “Divorce Club“. He also starred alongside Thierry Lhermitte and Pierre Richard, among others, in Kheiron’s latest film, “Brutus vs César“which will be broadcast on September 18 on the Amazon platform. And the projects are multiplying, the actor is part of the cast of the series”The flame“by Jonathan Cohen and”Valid
“by Franck Gastambide. He should play one of the main roles in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s latest film for Netflix International. And then, the Beaucairois is writing with Grand Corps Malade a series called” Youssef “which is scheduled for filming in 2021 .
Stephanie Marin * AT
read also: VIDEO PREVIEW. Michaël Youn and Arnaud Ducret teach us to laugh at divorce
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