Among the entire crew of the film De Gaulle, the actor who plays him, the Frenchman Lambert Wilson (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1958) is the only one who actually knew him. Fleetingly, as a child, when, because he was one of the good guys in the class, he was chosen to visit the Elysee Palace and see, together with the De Gaulle couple –Charles and Yvonne–, the Christmas tree installed there. Wilson tells it these days, as an anecdote, when asked about the responsibility of playing such a popular character in this film directed by Gabriel Le Bomin – released on November 20 -, which recounts a crucial month in the general’s life, the one in mid-1940 in which his former boss, Marshal Pétain, at the head of the French Government, was preparing to surrender to the Nazi troops. Contrary to the armistice, de Gaulle went into exile in London, where on June 18, in a historic speech through the BBC, he exhorted the French to resist the invader, one day before finally reuniting with his wife and three children. , whose adventures in the flight accompany the story. So far the facts that the film narrates, but that clandestine De Gaulle, deprived of nationality, degraded and sentenced to death by the Government of his country would thus become the visible head of free France and, after several years away from the politics, would be claimed years later, in a convulsive 1958 in his country, to end up founding and starring in the Fifth Republic.
Lambert Wilson confesses that he would like to live several lives, which is one of the reasons he became an actor. “If I had to consider my existence only as that of a Parisian actor dedicated exclusively to his career – he said in an interview during the promotion of ‘Barbacoa de amigos’ (2014) -, I would have the feeling of having lost a very important part of myself. lifetime. Very often I have the fantasy of becoming someone else entirely. A gardener, for example ”. Ambitious aspiration in whom, in the eyes of common humans, especially those who have not been graced with creative abilities, gathers an endless number of enviable artistic lives within: Lambert is not only a consecrated actor who has tasted the honeys of Hollywood – two Matrix installments included – while making a prestigious name in European cinema and becoming an icon in French, but instead He is also a singer, records albums as a baritone or even a tribute to Yves Montand, directs theater and, according to what has been seen, will end up fulfilling his dream of directing a good movie.
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Let’s go by parts. His father, George Wilson, was a prestigious actor and theater director who, incidentally, also knew De Gaulle, in his case, somewhat less superficially: as head of a national theater, he had to suspend, at the request of the general, the performance of a critical work with Francisco Franco because it could damage the sale of a company that at that time, in the late 1960s, the governments of Spain and France were negotiating. The fact is that the son soon knew that he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, in such a hurry that failed to complete acting studies at London’s Drama Center to get to work as soon as possible. Since he debuted in ‘Five days a summer’ (1982), by Fred Zinneman and starring Sean Connery, he has been continuously incorporating films with some of the greatest directors in his country, from André Téchiné, ‘La cita ‘(1985), with Juliette Binoche; even Claude Chabrol himself, ‘The blood of others’ (1984); Xavier Beauvois, ‘Of gods and men’ (2010); Alain Resnais, with whom he has repeated in five films, including ‘Public affairs in private places’ (2006) and ‘They haven’t seen anything yet’ (2012); or Jerôme Salle, who chose him to tell the life of the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau in ‘Jacques’ (2016).
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But the list of known directors who have trusted him includes international names like Peter Greenaway, with ‘The belly of an architect’ (1987); Carlos Saura, in ‘El Dorado’ (1988); James Ivory, in ‘Jefferson in Paris’ (1994); or Bertrand Travenier, with ‘The princess of Montpensier’ (2010). And, among so much European cinema, several landings in Hollywood blockbusters, such as ‘Matrix Reloaded’ and ‘Matriz Revolutions’ (both in 2003) or ‘Catwoman’ (2004). “I had a Hollywood dream that I gave up on several occasions,” he recently confessed while lamenting the clichés with which the North American industry decides the roles of actors of French origin. But his “true passion”, as he himself has confessed, is music, singing. So, in that eagerness to live many lives, he has recorded several albums – don’t miss a young 31-year-old Wilson on the cover of ‘Musicals’ – including Wilson chante Montand, a tribute to Yves Montand released in 2016, on the 25th anniversary of his death. Having directed theater, his dream, he says, is to direct a good movie, “not a stream.” Although he questions his ability as a screenwriter, does anyone doubt that he will succeed?
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