Clovis Cornillac admitted that he never used the terms “maman” or “papa” to designate her parents, the actress Myriam Boyer and the director Roger Cornillac. A statement which surprised the host Frédéric Lopez in A Sunday in the Countryside.
20 years apart between his parents
“I never called them that. She’s my mother, but I call her Myriam. It’s a relationship that has always been a little different“, he explained with a certain lightness. His parents separated when he was only five years old and he spent a lot of time with Myriam Boyer in the years that followed. “I was with my mother a lot, we grew up together actually. She was discovering life, and I discovered a little at the same time“, confides the actor, now 56 years old. Their shared passion for comedy has undoubtedly strengthened their bond, as Myriam Boyer recognized last July in Here Paris : “Clovis said: ‘Myriam and I grew up together.’ It’s true. When he entered the profession, he was 16, I was 36. I had opened the doors and cleared the brush, so everything else we did together“. The actor also revealed that his decision to call his parents by their first name surprised them: “They never understoods”, he clarified, adding that his brother and sister used the terms dad and mom. However, that did not prevent the actor from having a tender nickname : “Mim”, for the woman who gave birth to her, when she was 18.
When he was little, he was looked after at the café by friends
From a very young age, Clovis Cornillac became independent. At 14 years old, he leaves the family home to devote himself entirely to his passion: “I have a huge head start on the reality of this profession because I grew up in it. I had this maturity, to workr”, he confided. From his beginnings in street theater to his roles in cinema, he never rested on his family’s laurels: “I never waited for my mother’s permission to do anything“, he assures. He often evokes his childhood with nostalgia, emphasizing that he was never admiring of his parents, but that he always loved them. “I was just thinking what a great life, this freedom“, he continues. This independence is also marked by memories of Paris, where he remembers “being looked after at the café by friends“. Clovis Cornillac describes a childhood full of joy despite the “proletarian” status of his family: “We got by with not much, but with joy and life force“, he recalls.
