Is he scary, Jean-Pierre Bacri?
"Is that so?
Why ?"
, the actor is surprised when it is pointed out to him.
With
Le Sens de la fête
, by Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, the actor goes from a role of undertaker in
Gérard Pautonnier's
Great Cold
, to that of a caterer organizing a wedding.
He has just shot
Big Bang
, by Cecilia Rouaud, with Vanessa Paradis.
LE FIGARO. - What do you like about Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache's films?
Jean-Pierre BACRI. -
I collaborated in the writing of
Sens de la fête
.
There is a kinship between what we do, Agnès Jaoui and I, and what they do: choral films, humor, comedies at the same time - well, it's our ambition - funny and relevant which tell things.
There is a cousinhood.
What did you like about Max, your character?
His stubbornness, his discouragement, which we sometimes feel when we say to ourselves that things will not work out, a kind of depression, then life does its work, courage returns and things are sorted out.
It's nice to see this guy fight and go from feeling to feeling.
Isn't it a bit dictatorial?
Oh no, he's nice, anyway.
For example, he loves Adèle (Eye Haïdara, one of Max's waitresses,
Editor's note
), he's generous, he gives his employees a thousand chances, he doesn't fire any of them.
The characters also look like the actors, it's exactly them.
Does Max look like you?
Yes, I believe, I share his modesty.
Are you a docile actor?
You have to ask Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache.
It does not seem to me that I am very capricious.
I don't look like the cliché of the actor who asks for things, who refuses some and stays in his dressing room when he should be filming.
I play the game, I am on time, I do what I can to be docile.
If the director is propped up on a sentence, I force myself to act.
Fortunately for me, this doesn't happen often.
For you, is it not important to forget the technique?
Yes, that's right.
I make sure that we do not see the seams, that we have the impression that I am going through the situation.
I believe that an actor must have a certain empathy for people, to understand them and therefore to play them, to feel their emotions.
And be loved by the viewer?
Yes, but that's not my primary concern.
I play the character, if he's unfriendly, too bad.
I just played a very unsympathetic one in the last film we made, Agnès et moi (
Place publique
, release planned for 2018): a television host on the decline who feels himself getting old.
He is an abject character, I assume.
Are you not afraid that the public will say to themselves: "Bacri is going to be angry again"?
I do not care !
Each time, I am told: "You are always grumpy, etc."
I do not know what to answer, because in my opinion, I do not always interpret grumpy.
Chrysale, whom you played at the theater in
Les Femmes savantes
, directed by Catherine Hiegel, was not a grumpy fellow…
There are others.
Castella in
Le Goût des autres
, the character of
The Very Private Life of Mr. Sim
, by Michel Leclerc, who is even the opposite.
Certain roles or attitudes, at the Caesar or elsewhere, have marked people and they love labels.
I do what I want, what I find right and right.
This is how you choose your roles ...
It is true that I go less towards the heroes, the heroes bore me.
If I am offered the role of a guy who is formidable, but to whom the world makes miseries, I do not want to play it.
It pisses me off because I don't find it believable.
So I play people who have problems, faced with contradictions, that's what amuses me the most.
As in
Place publique
...
Yes, the character is an idiot, a misogynist, a reactionary.
I really play the opposite of what I think I am.
Isn't there something jubilant about playing this kind of character?
If it's true.
Some of these TV hosts disgust me so much that I really enjoyed becoming one of them.
I am overwhelmed by my job, writing and acting.
Still don't like seeing yourself on screen?
No, but I saw
Le Sens de la fête
.
I have walked in the story and tried to successfully ignore myself.
How do you react when you are recognized in the street?
I am friends with Jamel (Debbouze).
He is very popular.
He comes out, and in five minutes he's surrounded by a cluster of people.
Me, I live a super easy life.
People who recognize me kindly give me a little compliment and leave.
We are always happy when we are told that we like our work.
Was it with Jamel that you encouraged young people from the suburbs to vote in 2005?
Yeah, you see, that hasn't served much.
There were a lot of non-voters anyway.
Can your serious demeanor be scary?
Yes, that's right, I don't cultivate a permanent smile.
What do you think of the government today?
I can't think anything, he's only been in power for three months.
I'm not going to give an opinion like all those idiots who have expressed themselves after two days.
I have a memory that makes me laugh.
It had been three days since Emmanuel Macron was in power, he had given the list of those who were going to surround him and a newspaper had titled:
"The first government of Macron does not keep all its promises."
There is something that I like, it is the exemption from the council tax, 30% this year and total in three years.
I have friends in need.
Does your childhood in a straitjacket explain who you are today?
Yes, I don't have any childhood nostalgia at all because of that.
For me, it was only constraints: tomorrow, you get up early, you go to school, no, you can't watch this movie, no, you can't see your friends, do this… Adult, I tried to undo it all.
Can we say that your meeting with Agnès Jaoui in 1987 is one of the important meetings of your life?
This is THE meeting of my life.
His attendance has brought me a lot, I hope it is mutual.
My feminism is more virulent than it was ... And my political conscience is only twenty-seven years old.
At the time of the elections lost by the left in 1978, I had seen Rocard the same evening say
: "It is inevitable, the left will never come back."
I started to wonder if I was on the left or on the right, only to quickly realize that I was on the left.
Does notoriety give you freedom?
Yes, if I didn't have this notoriety, I wouldn't have financial independence.
There are a lot of films that I could have not made before, precisely, but since we made
Cuisine et Dépendance
and
Un air de famille
with Agnès, I choose all my films.