Since 2003, Olivier Minne has been in charge of Fort Boyard. And if today it is impossible to see someone else in his place, he almost refused to take part in this adventure…
Sometimes you have to trust fate. And it’s not Olivier Minne who will say the opposite. Since 2003, the presenter has been the reassuring and emblematic face of the family program Fort Boyard. It’s difficult today to imagine anyone other than him at the presentation. And yet, it was not necessarily a foregone conclusion. In fact, he confided that he almost refused this role…
Olivier Minne: why did he almost say no to Fort Boyard?
When he was offered orders for Fort Boyard, Olivier Minne was not at the top of his form and his career. In fact, he came “to experience a failure with the game La Cible”, he confides in the columns of TV 7 Days. “Yves Bigot, then director of the variety, games and entertainment unit of France 2, invited me to dinner. I thought it was to tell me bad news, explains the presenter before adding : “Instead he offered me the keys to Fort Boyard. I hesitated for 48 hours.”
Because? Fear of“being too young to embody the program, led by Patrice Laffont and Jean-Pierre Castaldi”, before him, he explains. The rest, you know. “I finally accepted. Yves Bigot had detected in me this ability to liven up the game. I learned, over time, that you had to trust those who perceive qualities in you that you do not suspect.”
Did Olvier Minne get tired of Fort Boyard?
A lot of time has passed since 2003. Enough to make you weary of your job? But for Olivier Minne, who is now 57 and lives most of the year in Los Angeles, that is not the case. “It’s always a special moment to arrive in the Fort, which is a character in its own right”he declared, still TV 7 Days.
“When I see her walls, I can’t help but think of Robert Enrico’s film, The Adventurers (1967), with Delon, Ventura, Reggiani and Johanna Schimkus. I am very close to her. I have always a thought for the candidates and the teams who, like me, find their childish soul as soon as they arrive here I’m still 9 and a half years old when I’m in the fort!” There is no doubt that Olivier Minne loves his job.
