Devilishly funny, divinely elegant, she is the popular actress par excellence. However, the rise of the new star of the small screen has been anything but meteoric. But who goes slowly… finds herself, in her forties, crowned favorite actress of the French in our Paris Match-Ifop survey! Morgane, her crazy character from “HPI”, plays a major role in this plebiscite: last year, the series brought together up to 11 million viewers seduced by the verve of the adventurer whom Audrey Fleurot describes as “ the unpoliced version” of herself.
Paris Match. You said, a dozen years ago, when the series “Engrenages” and “Un village français” were broadcast and just after the cinema release of “Intouchables”, that you did not want to be recognized in the street. Don’t you feel like you missed out after the phenomenal success of “HPI”?
Audrey Fleurot. I’m not going to complain about it, but it’s true that it’s not the exercise I’m most comfortable with. People’s behavior changes, and I don’t know how to deal with their looks. It’s pleasant but unsettling. We are very objectified, subject to a phantasmagoria which is disturbing, in front of young girls who can start to tremble, to cry, people who want hugs. And here I am uncomfortable. The function attributed to me is beyond me.
Hugs rather than selfies?
Yes ! I witnessed this shift. Between the two, there was the video where I was asked for a message for the little one’s birthday or the older one’s bar mitzvah. At the same time, I also find it moving: what I represent in “HPI” does them good. This return of love is wonderful, it gives meaning to my work. Now, it hasn’t changed anything in my daily life. I live completely normally. And then this level of notoriety comes relatively late. It’s not like it fell on me suddenly, at 20, at an age where you can quickly go into a tailspin. For me, it was gradual, even if “HPI” accelerated the process.
How long has it been since you took the metro?
Since the age of 20, in fact. But that has nothing to do with notoriety. Following numerous attacks, I thought that scootering in Paris could not be more dangerous.
Hence your immediate support for the MeToo movement?
I haven’t made a statement, but the cause is obviously close to my heart. I am lucky not to have been the victim of aggression within my profession, but I have been confronted, like everyone else, with abuse of power or challenges to my professionalism. When you are a young actress, you don’t really know what you are entitled, or not, to ask of yourself. Once I felt like something was being stolen from me and I swore to myself it wouldn’t happen to me again.
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In his sights: the filming of “Regarde!” » for the big screen with Dany Boon. The story of a couple whose son goes blind.
H&K / © Laurence LABORIE
What exactly happened?
A director had not explained to me the nature of a sequence, and I realized at the last moment that it was a sex scene. Faced with my reluctance, he asked me: “Are you an actress or are you not an actress?” The costume designers, who were not aware either, had not planned anything to make me more “comfortable” during the scene. I was at the wall, with no one to help me. I folded, but I was in good shape when I got home. The next day, I explained myself to the director… This balance of power is not specific to our profession: almost all women have been confronted, one day or another, with this type of situation. The freedom of speech today allows young people to decide where they want to set the limits.
By imposing the very sexual look of Morgane Alvaro, the heroine of “HPI”, who unabashedly sports necklines and tight-fitting jumpsuits in flashy colors, have you not made this character a feminist standard?
I see Morgane as a superhero with superpowers. I wanted his costumes to be a mix of “white trash”, in order to bring me closer to a whole France which is not or barely represented on screen, and children’s disguises. Her hyperfemininity is her shield. Her look is so offensive that it protects her from men. I like the idea that she is uninhibited, that she dresses as she wants, without being sexualized. She is outspoken, rude in the way she speaks, but never vulgar. It’s a loose exclamation point.
And what happens to him in this season which will be broadcast on TF1 in May?
She is pregnant with her fourth child and she does not know who the father is. This question is the common thread of the season.
Motherhood, let’s talk about it. You are the mother of a 7-year-old boy, Lou. How do you manage to reconcile your family life with a job that takes up your time?
It’s rock’n’roll, but it goes very well. In any case, looking around me, I see that most parents come home extremely late, have a nanny morning and evening, kiss their children at bedtime and go back to work the next day. When I’m not filming in Paris, I have phases of guilt, but I come home every weekend and, when I can, I manage to take my son with me. Like the children of Djibril [Glissant, son compagnon et père de Lou], who are 10 and 15 years old, my son is a fan of “HPI” and it’s quite joyful. I’m often absent, I probably miss things, but I’m lucky that his dad is there. We manage to experience exceptional moments.
When maturity rhymes with beauty. Today, she says she has “a peaceful relationship with seduction”.
H&K / © Laurence Laborie
So you no longer believe, as you did ten years ago, that “the family unit is an artificial concept”?
It’s not a question of believing it or not. The family unit is constantly reinventing itself. We don’t have the same aspirations at 25 as at 40. I believe in the balance that is mine and that suits my family. Many could not cope with the intermittency and could not stand not being there every evening. Me it’s the opposite. There are times when I work and find myself alone at night in an Airbnb, and times when I come home and devote myself fully to my family. I need both to fulfill myself.
You made yourself known through bitchy roles that you took “cathartic pleasure” in interpreting. Don’t you miss it?
I’ll happily return, but it’s an equally cathartic pleasure to play Morgane Alvaro. She is much more free, daring and funny than me. She does me good. There is something psychoanalytic about putting yourself in the shoes of different characters. It’s part of a part of ourselves that doesn’t have the opportunity to express itself on a daily basis. And it allows you to be yourself the rest of the time.
Precisely, if you see Morgane Alvaro as an exclamation point, you remain a question mark for the public: who are you “the rest of the time”?
Honestly, I don’t think it’s exciting. I could go crazy and invent a character that doesn’t exist, but I’m not sure I would keep it up for very long. I have a completely normal life. I feel that there is, on the part of the media, a desire for glamour, for exceptionality, which I am not able to give. I loved the time when actresses and actors kept a bit of mystery. Today, we are asked for our opinion on everything and anything, as if we were specialists in geopolitics or socio-economics. I think reality TV and the networks have changed the paradigm. There is a desire to enter people’s homes, to uncover their privacy. There is indeed a public demand, but we are not required to respond to it. I can see that quite a few of my colleagues publish posts on the networks where they put themselves on stage. They have every right to do so, but I have neither the time nor the inclination.
Theater, cinema, TV: “I don’t belong to any family. » Enough to multiply the projects.
H&K / © Laurence LABORIE
The survey commissioned by Paris Match last year confirmed that you were the French’s favorite actress. It’s reassuring ?
I still can’t get over it! That’s why I try to keep a cool head. I’m super happy with where I am, even though I never had a career plan. Besides, my luck is to have always been happy with the place I was in, when many of my colleagues were convinced that the grass was greener elsewhere. Those who did theater dreamed of doing TV, those who did TV dreamed of being in the cinema, etc. As for me, I have never shunned my pleasure, wherever it may be.
You developed a passion for this profession at the age of 8, when your father, a firefighter at the Comédie-Française, took you backstage. Were you fascinated by stars and glamour?
No way ! I saw in this profession a lifeline, the possibility of existing. I only wanted to do theater, because I had nothing to be on screen: I thought I was ugly, fat, with bifocal glasses…
When did you transform physically?
There were several stages. First my first lover who allowed me to shift the emotion I had with food (I was bulimic) onto someone. Then, I didn’t want to only play grandmothers. I took charge of myself to have more options, sport became part of my daily routine. Finally, I had eye surgery two years ago and it changed my life. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think of the ophthalmologist who definitively fixed my myopia – I was at minus 12, all the same! The first six months, when I woke up, I was like, “Damn, I fell asleep with my lenses on again.” And two seconds later, I was rejoicing!
Your favorite quote is from Epictetus: “There is only one road to happiness… It is to give up things that do not depend on our will.” Today, with your status, you no longer have to give up much…
Of course yes. You can never have everything in life. We can’t control everything either. Over time, I accept more and more that I won’t make myself sick over things I have no control over. And then, a life where you can get everything you want no longer has any flavor.
