Læticia chooses him to be Johnny Hallyday in the cinema

The idea had been floating around for a long time. Negotiations had been initiated with certain producers who approached her. Tempting… but never conclusive. “Something didn’t add up, the exchanges were complicated,” explains Laeticia. I felt like I was betraying Johnny by embarking on projects that seemed to me to lack a bit of madness, of rock’n’roll. »

I was amazed by his performance, his looks, his way of occupying space, of speaking, his spontaneity, his almost animal charisma…

Laeticia Hallyday

For the planets to finally align, it took a meeting with three rising stars: the “new golden boy of cinema” Hugo Sélignac, at the head of Chi-Fou-Mi productions (Mediawan Group), Cédric Jimenez, the director of “La French”, “Bac Nord”, “Novembre”, among others, and the actor Raphaël Quenard. “The project, the desire… It all starts from there, from him,” she confides.

Last December, on the plane that brought her from Los Angeles to Paris to inaugurate the exhibition on Johnny, Laeticia reviewed the catalog of films, stopping at that of Quentin Dupieux, “Yannick”, in which Raphaël Quenard plays the main role. “I was amazed by his acting, his looks, his way of occupying space, of speaking, his spontaneity, his almost animal charisma… I said to myself that if an actor could play Johnny in the cinema, it was him. »

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The image of Raphaël playing Johnny seemed obvious to me

Cedric Jimenez

Forty-eight hours later, as luck would have it, she met Hugo Sélignac at the Costes hotel: “It was late at night, he shouldn’t have been there, I shouldn’t have been there. » She tells him about Quenard, he mentions the name of Cédric Jimenez. The project sees the light of day. “When Hugo called me the next day to tell me about his meeting with Laeticia,” continues the director, “it only took me half a second to say yes, because the image of Raphaël playing Johnny appeared to me as obvious and because I felt capable of it. Telling rock through Johnny is an extraordinary, exceptional project, that of a lifetime. It’s a dream and an enormous responsibility to bring to the screen a character who ignited the crowds and mattered in the lives of four generations to the point of changing it for some. To give him full thanks, we will have to allow ourselves, like him, to free ourselves from conventions. »

First meeting almost straight away. A lunch in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, at the Atelier Robuchon bar, “the singer’s favorite restaurant”. Around the famous puree that is served there – “his favorite dish” – everything comes together quickly. “I was meeting Raphaël for the first time, but I had the impression of knowing him forever,” says Laeticia. “It’s true,” he agrees, “between us, it was straight away simple”

After the hors d’oeuvre, the main course… or how to tackle the monument! A challenge. Of the four, Quenard is the only one who has never encountered him. “But,” he explains, “we were all rocked by Johnny in our mothers’ wombs! » He himself confesses to having often hummed in the shower “Oh Marie if you knew”…

To bring this being of light to life, at the height of the notion of sharing and communion, it will take a lot of work.

Raphaël Quenard

During the conversation with Laeticia, common points emerge. The same fascination for “Le Bigdil”, by Vincent Lagaf’, for example. In his office in Marnes-la-Coquette, Johnny Hallyday threatened to “get out” who dared to interrupt him during the program that Raphaël, as a child, followed every day with his brother, in their suburb of Grenoble. Slipping into the rocker’s leather remains nevertheless quite dizzying. “How tall was he?” » asks the 33-year-old actor.

“1.83 meters, you have roughly the same stature,” replies Laeticia. “I’m 1.88 meters tall, but to fit into the costume I’m ready to have my shins sawed off,” retorts this ace of quirky repartee. The actor, who will play the star from his beginnings to his end, has already done makeup tests. “Very conclusive”, according to Cédric Jimenez. Quenard, who has just been awarded the César for best male revelation for his role in “Scrapyard Dog”, is aware of the scale of the challenge: “To give life to this being of light, to the paroxysm of the notion of sharing and communion, it will take a lot of work. »

Nothing that scares him. On the contrary, the challenge galvanizes him: “I am going to devote myself fully, methodically, to this preparation, for a short year no doubt. » Cédric Jimenez, with whom he has already worked in “November”, trusts him 100%: “Raphaël will start by immersing himself, week after week, month after month, eating, drinking and thinking Johnny for s ‘approach it. He doesn’t have to play, he has to be Johnny at the finish. It’s a big journey. He will cover 85% of the way alone. I’ll help him with the remaining 15%. The magic of cinema, the sets, the costumes will further add to this work. »

For this film, I decided to make Johnny’s archives, music, jewelry, objects available

Laeticia Hallyday

Coaches for physical, voice and choreography are obviously provided. But also the visit to the lair of Marnes-la-Coquette, where the singer saw Jade and Joy grow up and died, a stay in Saint-Barth, where he rests – another in Los Angeles, where he had chosen to go into exile, perhaps even a road trip on Route 66… Laeticia will serve as a guide throughout this pilgrimage. She is ready for even more: “For this film, I decided to make available Johnny’s archives, music, jewelry, objects, everything that tells his story and his life, his secrets, the places and the settings in which he lived. »

Everyone knows that another actor, the Belgian Matthias Schoenaerts, will soon also face the challenge of resurrecting Johnny on the big screen. According to the distributor Universal Pictures International France, “Phoenix” should be filmed between September and mid-November 2024, for a hoped-for release in 2025. Laeticia Hallyday knows nothing about this other opus: it is at the origin of her meeting with its director, Jalil Lespert, four years ago. “Jalil was already writing and contacted me at the time to have the rights. Three months of discussions followed, then something happened between us. Jalil continued his desire and his work around this film. »

Far from her the idea of ​​preventing the man with whom she lived her longest love story after Johnny – three years – before leaving him, in 2023: “It is normal for a destiny to give rise to vocations. I could ban certain things, but I don’t intend to. » Ultimately, the fact that there are two films honoring her husband should flatter her.

Yves Saint Laurent experienced the same homages in cinema, one by Bertrand Bonello, the other, moreover, Jalil Lespert. “The two films will be very different,” explains Laeticia Hallyday, “that of Jalil focuses on three years of Johnny’s career, from 1995 to 1998, from his descent into the hells of Las Vegas, during which he destroyed himself until to be damaged, upon his strong return to the Stade de France with, in the background, our meeting. Cédric’s, which I decided to support, will cover his entire life, with this powerful rock’n’roll look that he would have wanted…”

Without having learned them, I know his songs by heart, they are part of my life

Cedric Jimenez

When Hugo Sélignac mentioned Jimenez’s name to Laeticia, she remembered above all “Johnny’s fascination with Cédric when they met one New Year’s Eve at our house in Gstaad.” The director, who had just finished filming “La French”, had arrived in the wake of two of his actors, Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche, friends of the couple. “At the beginning,” Jimenez remembers, “there were a lot of us and as the evening went on, the Taulier, who was a little fed up, emptied the house, giving leave to those he wanted to see leave… Gilles, Jean and I are We stayed late, we discussed cinema, we danced, we had a laugh. That evening, I caught a glimpse of the man behind the star. And what struck me was his immense humility. Johnny showed himself to be excessively sympathetic, detached from himself. He answered questions while looking you straight in the eye. I remember that look…”

“He talks to me,” he says again. Without having learned them, I know his songs by heart, they are part of my life. » The director, born in 1976, specifies, as a note of intention: “I want that in the end, we love the man as much as his music. » Having become a fan of Jim Morrison at the age of 13 by discovering him in the film “The Doors”, he dreams that his “Johnny” will take on a new generation who have probably never seen the Taulier on stage.

The release date of the film is set: December 8, 2027

“To make a great film” is the ambition of all four of them. Its financing is already assured, and many partners would be there. “There will be a strong team, a budget to match. We’re only at the beginning: we have to draw up plans for a house before building it,” says Jimenez.

The time to write the script, to conduct an extraordinary casting to feature the celebrities who mattered in the star’s life, filming is scheduled for 2026. It should last between three and five months, in several territories, to synthesize in a few hours seventy-four years of an unusual destiny. The release date of the film is set: December 8, 2027, ten years, to the nearest three days, after the singer’s death. By then, France will have changed president and perhaps destiny… Seeing Johnny reborn should do him good. Laeticia Hallyday smiles: “We can continue to cling to the dream. »