Take One

PHOTOGRAPHY MATHIEU ZAZZO

What do you normally have for breakfast? In Paris, I’ll pick up a newspaper and breakfast at the brasserie under where I live. Bread and butter, a coffee and an orange juice. I adore the waitress who serves me and when she isn’t in I find myself rather sad. I rarely have breakfast alone, I need to be surrounded by the people and the activities of the café.

L’Officiel India DigitalRead L’Officiel India in the digital libraryEvery issue and every cover story, on TCG Media.Read now

A place you’d recommend in Cannes? The Mondial, where I put up every year. I really like this hotel, it’s centrally located and familial.

Your impression of the Côte d’Azur? For me, it is ‘To Catch a Thief’ by Alfred Hitchcock.

What are your memories of filming in the Riviera? ‘Un sac de billes’ by Jacques Doillon, ‘La Californie’ by Jacques Fieschi starring Nathalie Baye. In Cannes, we had shot the last episode of the second season of ‘Dix pour cent’ with Juliette Binoche. I remember the filming of ‘Mortelle Randonnée’, along with Isabelle Adjani. That was in September and we were at the Monte Carlo Casino; all of a sudden there was pin drop silence, we had just learnt of Grace Kelly’s car accident.

In Happy End, you played Jean-Louis Trintignant’s barber, whose agent you were… Michael Haneke had sent me the script, and immediately I saw that my scene – which talks of death – was difficult. I wasn’t really in that frame of mind at the time and so I did everything to mess up my takes. That didn’t work! Finally, it became an anthological scene and, like in ‘À nos amours’ by Maurice Pialat, I was glad I had accepted.

What’s going on with you, professionally, at the moment? We are going to show my last production, ‘Bonne Pomme’ by Florence Quentin, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu, as a preview at the Angoulême festival, which I am co-organising.

You are also the host on ‘Place au cinéma’, on France 5. How do you manage being in so many places? I have the gift of ubiquity! This programme is a little segment, but it allows people to experience films in a way that they couldn’t elsewhere.

How do you look at the path you have followed in life? In my head, I am no more than 40! It all goes by very quickly. Suffices to say, I have been able to experience everything.

Festival du film francophone d’Angoulême, from the 22nd to the 27th of August. www.filmfrancophone.fr “Bonne Pomme” by Florence Quentin, releasing on the 30th of August. “Happy End” by Michael Haneke, releases the 4th of october.