Jérôme Commandeur is a comedian, actor and director. He is the exceptional guest of Le Monde d’Élodie Suigo on franceinfo from December 23 to 27, 2024. Insatiable for novelties, laughter and human adventures, he never stopped making the French laugh. His constant good humor struck a chord with the public and the profession. Since then, on December 18, 2024, he has appeared on Canal+ in “The Magical World of Jérôme Commandeur”, a series made up of eight episodes that he wrote and in which he occupies the first place, surrounded by friends.
franceinfo: How did this beautiful adventure of the “Magical World” come about? Is this a mark of trust?
Jerome Commander : I’m not going to give you the classic number, but it was really the project I wanted the most. A kid’s thing. I think back to the Splendid which makes a parody of “Dossiers de l’screen”, through Les Nuls, Les Inconnus, Le Palmashow, I’m crazy about that. It makes me howl with laughter and also because my mother is Italian, I watched Le Trio which was really the equivalent of Italian Dummies and Unknowns and it made me howl with laughter. So it’s really a kid’s thing and I find it really nice to say almost 40 years later, I’m doing a little bit of it too.
Was it the performing arts that allowed you to find yourself? When we look at the evolution of your one-man shows, even there, we discover things in these sketches for Canal+.
Yes, that’s exactly it.
“I found my place by digging, by creating and I found myself along the way.”
Jerome Commanderat franceinfo
In “Seeds of Star”, I see a child, it’s not even that he’s green, he’s khaki. He has no idea where he is. He’s happy to be there! He’s a rabbit in the headlights of a car, he talks nonsense. He finished, he said: “Goodbye” and he returns home. Well, it’s neither done nor to be done. In fact, almost 30 years have passed and it’s true that this job helped me to find myself, to identify myself and that’s why I have a very close relationship with this profession. I love it.
We often discover that the biggest clowns are sad in real life. When the lights go out, is there a kind of nostalgia, a sadness or have you already moved on to something else?
But it’s very unusual for people to come up and say hello to you in the street, roll down their window, give you a thumbs up, cross the street to tell you that you matter. This must always be kept, it is an extraordinary happiness. It’s true that when you have a performance hall, you are in a city at the other end of France, you don’t necessarily want to go out, you don’t know where to go. You go back to your hotel and then you think about that applause and you say to yourself: “but it’s crazy, it was an hour ago, and here I am in front of the television in my hotel room brushing my teeth“.
“Basically, what we all experience in our lives as artists is a little amplified. It’s a kind of wandering between a little more light and a little less.”
Jerome Commanderat franceinfo
You say you are anxious. What scares you?
No, no. I echo what you say. I tried to put as much makeup on him as possible. But here, for example, I’m careful about what I say, I’m careful with my words, I’m careful not to trip. When I go to make television, it’s going to be the same. Even sometimes when I go into a store, I repeat the previous sentence to myself a little because I’m very anxious. I know that for example, in a few years, I will return to the stage, the first ones will be tragic, but there is a little masochistic side to all that.
What’s next for the adventure then?
I’m starting filming my next film about the wanderings of a group of friends at almost 50 who are forced to find each other. They were together in high school and they really meet again 30 years later, almost to the day. They are obliged because of the death of one of them. And there it is, it’s going to talk about: what were we? What have we become? And did we manage to do everything we wanted and why is it a bit stuck at the moment? And the answers, we will find them precisely at the time of high school, so the film is called, You haven’t changed with notably Laurent Lafitte, François Damiens and Vanessa Paradis.
Have you managed to fulfill your childhood dreams?
You can never say yes, but in any case, yes, I am very happy. It would be crazy if I wasn’t, anyway.
