A few days before the launch of the new season of Star Academy, professors Malika Benjelloun and Hugues Hamelynck make revelations about how they should organize their lessons.
After months of waiting, the Star Academy 2024 will (finally) land on TF1 on Saturday October 12. For this twelfth season – and the third since the program made its return – the production decided to clean up the teachers’ side. Indeed, Marlène Schaff is still present, but becomes a teacher of stage expression. The theater teacher, Pierre de Brauer, is replaced by Hugues Hamelynck. Adeline Toniutti does not return and Sofia Morgavi, opera singer, replaces her. Then, the sports teacher, Coach Joe, does not come back and it is now Ladji Doucouré who will ensure that the students – two have already been revealed – exercise.
Does production organize the courses? Malika Benjelloun responds
A few days before the start of the season, Malika Benjelloun, still a dance teacher, and Hugues Hamelynck spoke on the airwaves of NRJ in Belgium, their country of origin. The opportunity for them to talk about how their courses are organized. Does production have a say? For her part, Malika Benjelloun admits to being very free on this. “We prepare course content because we want to know where we are going. We still use a real educational method to start from point A and work our way up.“, she explains before ensuring that she does what she wants, “What is fantastic, at least for my part, is that the production completely gave me carte blanche“. She insists that she “never had a guideline” : “It’s fantastic“.
Hugues Hamelynck has discussions with production: “What we propose must remain telegenic“
For his part, the one who will take his first steps in the castle next week explains that his lessons are slightly more supervised. “It’s a bit the same thing but we have a dialogue with production to finding the right balance between pedagogy and the fact that it remains a TV show“, he explains. So, what he offers must be beneficial for the students but also that it looks good on the screen: “What we propose must remain telegenic“. As a result, Hugues Hamelynck has already started working on his first course with production: “We have evolved this exercise. It’s still the same but we’ve adapted it a little so that it corresponds to what we can actually do in the castle, in the theater room and knowing that there are cameras.“We can’t wait to discover all this!