At 80, Pierre Arditi has nothing left to prove. The actor is the winner of two Césars and a Molière, rewarding a rich career, both in the cinema and on stage. The one who distinguished himself in Smoking / No Smokingovertook Master Shifu in Kung Fu Panda and shared the stage with Muriel Robin for the play Laplanddecided that it was time to tell the story. November 7, 2024 was released in bookstores Born to playa biography written by Nathalie Simon and published by Robert Laffont, which Tele-Leisure was able to read. Inside, he tells his story, from the meeting of his parents to today. Confiding about his successes, his failures, his difficulties, his suicide attempt and even… his complexes.
“I never loved myself physically” : Pierre Arditi's confidences on his relationship with his appearance
“I had friends who were much prettier than me, who stole everything in their path”he said on The Divan d'Henry Chapier on France 3 in 1987. From his childhood, Pierre Arditi retains the memory of a difficult schooling. He then becomes interested in something else. “At the Three Donkeys [salle de concert parisienne, ndlr]Pierre Arditi is fascinated by the spotlight. The idea of being looked at, loved and recognized continues to make its way through his mind. But he is not 'comfortable with life', doubts himself, is self-conscious about his physical appearance. He looks 'tart' in the photographs of himself as a child and deplores not having the 'young physique'.we can read in his biography. “'I was totally disoriented, I needed to reassure myself… partly by loving women, and above all by being loved by them.' Later, he confided, lying on Marc-Olivier Fogiel's couch: ' I never loved myself physically. I would have liked to be Alain Delon, Jean-Claude Brialy…'” He will maintain this negative vision of himself for a long time. In 2022, he declared on OCS: “I didn't want to become an actor because I couldn't afford it, I didn't like my face, I didn't like my voice. From that point of view, nothing has changed, and it's even worse today than sixty years ago I did not consider myself capable of achieving it..
This other profession that Pierre Arditi almost exercised
So for a time, Pierre Arditi abandoned his projects and decided to embark on a completely different adventure, far from the spotlight. “Before his military service, carried out around 17, he joined an insurance company, rue Henner, in the 9th arrondissement. 'It was not money that I needed, rather a brand of respectability I continue to think that my childhood was a wonderful period of my existence, but dangerous at the same time, because in a family of artists, you never know if you will be able to eat your fill or leave. on vacation certainly, my parents managed to hide their financial difficulties from us, but we ended up seeing them anyway. I think what scared me, what I rejected, was this kind of insecurity. she who scared the crap out of me, who pushed me to work there for a little over a year. That's why I became an insurance agent.”. Pierre Arditi therefore almost ended his life and made a career behind a desk! It was his sister, Catherine Arditi, who eventually pushed him to make a living from his passion. She would have been right.
