the essential
Global star since the success of “Intouchables” in 2011, head of Netflix with “Lupin”, Omar Sy leads an international career between Paris and Los Angeles which has made him one of the best-known French actors. In a book of interviews, he agrees for the first time to lift the veil on his life, his relationship to success. Interview.
You weren’t keen on doing this book at first. For what ?
At first, I didn’t see the point. Today, the book has its full reason for being. Because it tells the journey of a man but above all it evokes everything that makes me up: the trajectory of a young Frenchman who finds himself exposed to this level, who follows this artistic path, who experiences all these incredible encounters while being also a kid from the suburbs, a son of immigrants… It is this mixture which in my opinion makes the book interesting. The form is also important because it is a conversation with the journalist Elsa Vigoureux. I especially didn’t want a text in which I deliver my “truth”. The conversation format helps avoid this.
You appear in the book extremely attached to your privacy. How did you finally agree to talk about some of these subjects?
This is once again thanks to this method of writing: in a conversation, you approach subjects more easily than in a question-and-answer exchange. Afterwards, I don’t hide it: we could say everything to each other, but everything could not necessarily be found in the book. I would have thought of censoring it a lot more! But what is intimate didn’t bother me when I read it. That’s why there are things in the book that I never said. I think it was the right time in my life to agree to tell this story. With this book, I also speak to my family: my children, my wife, my parents, my brothers and sisters. It’s a declaration of love for mine.
In this book, you distinguish between “Omar” and “Omar Sy”. What does that mean ?
The Omar Sy that I talk about in the book is not really me but rather the projection that others make of me. I did this work a long time ago: I know that this public persona is not me and that what people project onto me, I will never be able to give them. I know I can’t meet everyone’s expectations. In my opinion, moreover, those who start doing this take the risk of getting lost or going crazy. But I reassure you: everything is fine, I am in agreement with myself (smile).
AFP – VALERIE MACON
“In 2011, I was living and offering incredible things to people. You had to believe in God because otherwise you end up believing that God is yourself,” you confide. Did you have to leave France after the success of Intouchables?
Everything that was given to me at that moment was enormous, and I fully realized it. But I said to myself, “That’s a lot for a human being.” And in these circumstances, we can switch to something else, believe ourselves superior, see ourselves as a superman. However, in my education, there is neither superman nor subman. I don’t mind having particularities, and I live it very well, but I am not extraordinary in the strict sense of the term. So I wanted to avoid going on the wrong track. What I say in the book is that in these circumstances, when such success falls on you, if you don’t believe in God, you actually run the risk of believing that you are one…
You say that you constantly doubt but that you do not feel worried…
The doubt is there constantly, yes, but it is a driving force. It’s like fear: these are signals that provoke a reaction, that push you to act. Worry, on the contrary, is paralyzing. I think you have to accept being human and making mistakes. It’s part of learning wisdom. But you don’t have to be paralyzed.
You say, “I’m poor. My life is a bit like being at summer camp with the rich.” Is this a way of staying true to your social origins?
The first thing is that it’s part of me: I don’t control this social origin. The second is that even if I live my social condition very well today, I try to constantly take this step aside. This is how we grow up; while remaining able to look at oneself objectively. I work at it every day, even if I can’t tell you that I succeed!
You have few film projects in France. For what ?
There are two factors: first, I don’t get projects that offer me something new, that I haven’t done yet. Now, I definitely don’t want to repeat myself. Then, I want to get involved in projects that correspond to the values that I want to uphold. And it’s true that I don’t get a lot of them. This is also why I created my own production structures.
You say you have little attraction for dark characters. For what ?
I don’t see myself playing a character without the possibility of redemption. I think we have enough dark fates in the world today. I want to tell something else as an actor, and to see something else as a spectator.
