Christian Clavier: "Spain is a tragedy and France is a comedy"

In the middle of one of the heat waves, on July 12 in Madrid, not even the garden of the Ritz hotel is spared from the suffocation of the afternoon.

Christian Clavier (Paris, 70 years old) appears over there, a shirt open to the middle of the trunk, a tan skin color similar to the one that one of his closest friends, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, usually wears in summer.

If for many Europeans the image of France would be Gérard Depardieu, in their country they would advocate more for Clavier, one of the highest-grossing comedians in the history of European cinema, the protagonist of the sagas

and

and the face of Asterix in the first two deliveries with flesh and blood actors.

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Among his nearly one hundred works there has been room for dramas, such as an adaptation of

or for historical series (he has played Napoleon).

But his thing is laughter, and now he has just premiered in Spain

the third time in which he gives life to Claude Verneuil, a Gaullist notary, from a Catholic bourgeois family settled on the route of the Loire castles, and whose four daughters are married to immigrants or descendants of immigrants, to the father's tantrum.

It is the face of that rural and conservative France, and Clavier can be seen relaxed in the character: he appears in Madrid before going on vacation "to the sea" and after finishing the filming of

another comedy about an aristocrat scandalized by the future wedding of his daughter with the son of a car salesman.

"It's intended for a teenage audience," he concedes with a smile.

Clavier, scourge of the press, today, however, is in a good mood "despite this heat".

Ask.

To what extent the saga

serves to portray a face of France?

Response.

Naaaa, it's a comedy.

We just want to cause laughter.

Wait, maybe yes.

Laughter is the soul of France, as it is of Italy.

Laughter is the soul of France, as it is of Italy."

Q.

You are haggling over the question.

Is this conservative and racist character common in France?

R.

You can, but for further analysis I believe in what the public thinks.

What do you think?

Clavier and Jean Reno, in 'The visitors mess it up: in the French Revolution!'

(2016).

P.

In your country, for many of your compatriots, you are the face of France.

R.

I know, but I'm not very interested in that.

I prefer to talk about movies, and that these are universal, such as parent-child relationships, or between parents-in-law and children-in-law, a topic close to almost everyone.

Honestly, I think we've reached the end of the saga.

P.

Put between a rock and a hard place, who do you prefer by your side: Jean Reno [partner in several films, including

or Gérard Depardieu [Obelix in the big screen adaptation of the comics of Uderzo and Goscinny]?

A.

For what?

No, seriously, that kind of election is very Spanish.

I am French.

Spain is a tragedy and France is a comedy.

Clavier and Gérard Depardieu, in 'Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar'

Q.

Really?

R.

Since Molière we are making fun of ourselves.

At the same time we are very intellectual, very pretentious... We are a very particular nation, with this double facet.

P.

In recent times in Europe, and of course in Spain, they do not stop adapting comedies that work in one country and the scheme is repeated in the rest.

R.

Only Pedro Almodóvar can save himself from this problem, and his cinema is not pure comedy either.

When he takes Antonio Banderas out [in

and makes him talk to his mother, who reproaches him for having been a very bad son... That's comedy.

Spain is very creative, but you drag something serious, heavy.

We try to live more lightly.

When we didn't make it, we filmed a comedy [laugh].

By the way, I wish I had known Spanish to act in a comedy produced by Almodóvar,

I was dazzled.

Spain is very creative, but you drag something serious, heavy.

We try to live more lightly”

Q.

At some point have you stopped worrying about the box office?

R.

I have been very lucky in my life because I have made films with great success.

And it has never gone to my head.

I made my first film when I was 20 years old [when I was already part of a famous collective of comic actors, Le Splendid], and from that moment I stopped worrying.

Christian Clavier, right, in 'My God, what have you done to us?'

P.

That is to say, that you accept the projects for...

R.

...the script, always the script.

I am a movie fanatic, I have seen movies that have not worked at the box office, and instead were very interesting or funny.

In the end they become cult titles.

In short, the public believes us, you can never forget him.

Q.

And while shooting, are you able to guess if a joke will work?

R.

You always have to wait for the viewers, we do not have infused comic science.

You can sense it.

Comedy in cinema is a ladder, and you have to climb it.

One step is the script, another the shooting —and you notice if the companions laugh—, another step is reached in the editing...

Clavier, playing Napoleon in the 2002 miniseries.

P.

You have only directed once.

Why hasn't she repeated?

A.

Because I really like acting.

And only when I understood it consciously, I also understood that acting and directing is too much.

You can't be in and out, you can't let go of the sentence and see the reaction at that moment.

Years ago I thought that when I could no longer act, I would move on to directing.

And it hasn't happened yet.

Q.

As a screenwriter, where do you take your ideas from?

R.

_

From the people.

I love people.

I look at the situations, at the talks in restaurants... I'm a sponge.

Q.

Are you worried about disconnecting from the street?

R.

True, when you are known the reactions of your interlocutors are distorted.

One of the few good things about the current pandemic is masks, because with them nobody recognized me.

The fact of being famous does not help, it has no interest.

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