“I'm going to live with my hands”

At 58, Philippe Vasseur put his acting career on hold and is now flourishing as a visual artist. The AB Productions years, the Picardy coast, his paintings inspired by the sea and boats, meeting with the man everyone knows under the name of José d'Hélène and the boys. [Première publication le 18 août 2024]

Philippe Vasseur is a simple and discreet guy. Friendly too. Notoriety ? An anomaly. A combination of circumstances that lasted… 32 years. In December 2023, the actor said goodbye to José, this character played over so many seasons and returned home.

Cayeux-sur-Mer, its pebble beach, its plank path and its cabins which add color to the summer. Philippe lives a little further away, away, quiet, in a house acquired in 2007. A few minutes of walking in preserved dunes and here we are facing the sea, magnificent under a big blue sky that day. “Nature is still pristine here. There are no disgusting buildings, like you can see on the coasts elsewhere. It's my little corner, there's no one there. I like being quiet here. I feel free.”

By settling on the Picardy coast, Philippe reconnected with his childhood. Born in Amiens, he grew up in Cayeux. His mother bought a hairdressing salon there in 1974. Philippe was then 8 years, every day is an adventure : “When you're a kid here, it's the ideal playground, you have the sea, the sand, the dunes with the blockhouses. At the time, you had to be careful, there were still a lot of mines and guns lying around. I was never home except when it rained !“

Seven years of happiness, games and crafts. Philippe is a manual and this skill will precipitate his destiny. College in Abbeville, art school in Roubaix, he became a decorator.

1989, entry into the AB Productions universe, Philippe manufactures filming accessories for the Dorothée club and the series of this increasingly prolific company. He helps to create the sets for a new program, Helene and the boys. Handsome, he is spotted and becomes a key character.

“The first time I played, I was playing a musketeer on an episode of Muscle Men and I was so scared that I said to myself : 'it's not at all a thing for me'. A few months later, they offered me the role of José in Hélène and the boys. The friends who worked with me on decoration at that time told me : 'if you don't take this opportunity, you're stupid. Try it, you'll see.' And they were right.“

“At first, fear really stopped me from having fun. It took many months before I relaxed and enjoyed myself. I would say maybe even two or three years.“

David Hasselhoff came to see how we worked. When we saw this big guy show up on set, it was funny. Americans don't work the same way at all.

Helene and the boys is a huge success. 4 to 6 million daily viewers seduced by this endlessly replayed romance, a stunned press multiplying articles on this social phenomenon. Journalists criticize these young, inexperienced actors who have become rock stars. The AB machine is running at full speed. The American giants are intrigued by this Made in France success.

“It was heavy, doing one episode a day. 26 useful minutes per day, at the time, that didn't exist anywhere else. David Hasselhoff came to see how we worked. When we saw this big guy show up on set, it was funny. Americans don't work the same way at all.“

“You know when you arrive at 7:30 for makeup, but you don't know what time you leave. The 26 minutes must be canned at all costs. It could be 10, 11 p.m. And the next day, you do the same again, according to your summons time. If you are not in the first sequences, you can afford to sleep two or three hours more. Otherwise, it's tiring. But it's a great job, you earn a good living, what's going on? ! Everything is fine ! I was 26 years old.“

Philippe is far from suspecting it, but the adventure will take half his life. HAS Helene and the boys succeed The miracle of love, The holiday of love et The mysteries of love. The name changes a little, the plot remains, romance with multiple combinations.

The audiences of yesteryear are no longer relevant, television consumption having been disrupted by the explosion in the number of channels and the appearance of platforms, but the series still exists, favored by its unrivaled production costs and the writing fertile of its creator, Jean-Luc Azoulay. Philippe also detects a magical ingredient in this longevity : “I didn't imagine it would last this long. No one imagined it, perhaps not even Jean-luc Azoulay…. It's the magic of having us grouped together because humanly it fit and when it sticks on the set, it sticks to the image. People have been telling us this for thirty years. The most diligent, the finest people see the complicity.“

At 58 years old, I have the right to say that I want to act in quality things, to say quality texts where I take pleasure, something that makes me hard! Really ! Too bad if my acting career ends there.

Complicity, yes, but desires from elsewhere too. Philippe had already taken the field for the first time. And then, he came back, because he had to live well…. In December 2023, he decided to take the plunge and announced his departure. “Why did you stop? Because I spent half my life saying these texts. As long as I had fun, it was okay. With my friend Patrick Puydebat, we had some good sequences, we had lots of laughs, despite the busy days, despite the texts… which I found light. Bills to pay, life, child to raise. When my son finished his studies, I decided to stop. I wasn't having fun anymore and I was having trouble learning the lyrics, it was becoming too heavy for me, I just wanted quality. I don't spit in the soup. At 58 years old, I have the right to say that I want to act in quality things, to say quality texts where I take pleasure, something that makes me hard ! Really ! Too bad if my acting career ends there. Well, it stops there. And I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to wait by my phone. It's all over, it's over, over ! I will live with my hands. So.“

Living with your hands would be ideal. A visual artist under the name Paul Debeauvais, Philippe creates astonishing relief paintings, drawn from an imagination nourished by America, the land of superheroes whose stories he devoured when he was younger. The Wells Fargo passes the aircraft carrier Nimitz. We also imagine Jules Verne passing through. “The Nautilus is a kid's dream. When I came to settle here, it brought back all these memories… The sea, my childhood, the Titanic, 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea, the wrecks.“

The mechanisms inlaid in his paintings are trompe-l'oeil, casts of parts that would otherwise be too heavy. “I asked the local mechanic to give me some car timing gears to mold. I mix iron powder with resin. I let it rust outside and in three days it took ten years. The illusion is perfect. The result is terrible. I like things with patina. Maybe I was on the Titanic, I don't know !“

Now I can say it, I challenge all the actors to come and spend days of filming like we did and say these lines. We'll see what they do if we only give them two takes, if they're good right away.

And the comedy ? Is the story really over? ? Will we see Philippe again on television ? When he goes to castings, condescending professionals offer him extras. He saw it as an offense. “At my small level, I learned everything, work quickly, learn the texts quickly, be in the sequences as quickly as possible. We have been criticized for years. Now, I can say it, I challenge all the actors to come and spend days of filming like we did and to say these lines. We'll see what they do if we only give them two takes, if they're good right away. There, I will shut my mouth.“

“Maybe if I had 500 000 followers or a million, maybe they would want me on another series or films. Maybe that's what matters now. It's your popularity, maybe not your popularity as an actor or actress. I don't know. I lost the codes.”

What Philippe has not lost is the sense of friendship and its simplicity. When we spoke about him that day in Cayeux-sur-Mer, faces came alive, the inhabitants smiled : “Philippe is a friend !“