Scheduled in theaters for February 5, 2025, the film “La Pampa”, directed by Antoine Chevrollier, is a feature film which tells the story of Willy (Sayyid El Alami) and Jojo (Amaury Foucher), friends of inseparable childhood. Artus slips into the skin of Teddy, a character who represses his homosexuality. A role far from the universe of his latest success, “Un p’tit truc en plus”.
For the occasion, the actor made the cover of Têtu magazine, wearing a tank top, and with a seductive quote: “All this to make people believe that I am not homophobic.” And he reveals some well-hidden secrets about his private life.
A desire to bring its audience to new territory
If some actors are still hesitant to play LGBTQIA+ characters for fear of being put into boxes, or questioned about their sexual orientation, this is not the case for Artus. When the production of “La Pampa” offered him the role of Teddy, the comedian jumped at the opportunity, despite the darker aspect of this role, further from his usual catalog.
“I didn’t hesitate for a second,” he explains, proclaiming his admiration for director Antoine Chevrollier. “For him, I’ll go anywhere without even reading the script.” But the actor also believes that it is “important” to bring his “popular audience to another genre of film, especially with such a message.”
Sex scenes and secrets
In the feature film, Artus specifies that there will be “a scene of nudity and sex which could put off certain actors”. Not him, though. “I have no problem with my body and with the idea of kissing a man. On the contrary, I have more difficulty pretending. If you have to film a kiss, it has to be real, otherwise It’s visible, no one believes it.”
The opportunity for the actor to slip: “I have always been very open about it. I am straight (he is married to Sarah, whom he has been dating since 2016, editor’s note), but I have experimented with a lot of things sexually , without ever putting up barriers, and I have already had relationships with guys.”
Moreover, he does not exclude the idea of one day spending his life with a man. “Maybe I'm wrong, and one day I'll fall in love with a guy, but I'm not attracted to guys: I don't turn on them in the street, for example. “
Artus, for his part, says he “totally embraces” his curious hetero side: “Really, I think we all are a little bit, right?”, he asks. “I discovered it when I went to a libertine club. You have to know how to put your straight brain to listen to your body, what excites you at that moment. And then the next day, you're not no longer have to worry about asking yourself if you're a good straight guy, if you're a little gay… At a given moment, in desire, it's the body that speaks, so do what you you want! I always listened to my body before listening my mind about what people might think of me,” he concludes.
