He didn't want to give an interview.
We had been warned, we had insisted and we found ourselves facing him, at the restaurant of a hotel on rue Cassette, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.
It was October 2, 2017 and when we arrived, Jean-Pierre Bacri was looking around.
Great humor and tenderness as a wedding planner in "Le Sens de la fête", the actor had chained dozens of interviews with journalists and he had had enough of their questions - "always the same".
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He told us right away.
Emphasizing that all the answers we were looking for were found in the brilliant comedy of Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache.
Before we even started the interview, an octogenarian recognized him and approached our table.
We trembled for the intruder… But Bacri listened to her torrent of admiration with sincere politeness, then thanked her with an attentive smile.
With the waiter too, who asked us to change tables, he responded with a deep, almost shy kindness.
The perfect customer.
Whereas with us, he played the "bad customer", the one to whom we must draw the worms of the nose.
"I have an ideal life: I love to write, I love to play"
Bacri had so much to say, however.
On his “cousinhood” with the director duo, first of all, since, like Toledano and Nakache, he liked “funny things with a little meaning”.
Jean-Pierre Bacri praised the “great benevolence” and the “humanity” of the filmmakers of “Intouchables”.
When he spoke of himself as an author, Bacri never said “I”, but “with Agnès, on”, he who co-signed with Agnès Jaoui all his scripts, from “Cuisine et Dépendances” to “Place publique” in passing by "A family resemblance" and "the Taste of others".
Because we were coming back to the charge, Jean-Pierre Bacri had explained to us how, “with Agnès”, therefore, they put politics in their comedies, spoke of “living together” between two valves.
While he was rare in the cinema, he was asked if he only shot out of envy: “Yes, since I became financially independent, twenty-five years ago, thanks to
Un air de famille
.
[…] We only have one life: what's the point of making films that you don't like?
I have an ideal life: I love to write, I love to play, I have Agnès, I have great friends, healthy and fun occupations.
And as I like
idleness,
I'm fine like that.
"
"I do not intend to expose my senility to people"
The actor and screenwriter confided a little about the “adventure” of aging.
“You are exiled from the land of youth.
You have to accept that there is a moment when you stop pleasing, sleeping with girls.
But it's not a drama… ”, he argued.
While assuring that he would continue to play only as long as it would be "watchable": "I do not intend to expose my senility to people.
[…] You have to know how to steer clear to maintain your dignity.
At the moment when we had advanced, on tiptoe, that with this new role of surly with a big heart, some were going to say that "Bacri does Bacri", he had brilliantly nailed our beak: "Unlike Luchini who does Depardieu, you mean?
"
We had then finished the interview with relief and we had rushed to the counter to pay the bill.
It was there that he had sent us, for the first time in our exchange, a friendly smile, indicating that he would take care of the bill.
The rough interviewee had once again become the gentleman he was in town and on the sets.
The one who does not pretend, but who undoubtedly has a “taste for others”.