“It’s difficult to erase the funny in people’s heads”

Franck Dubosc. I might get offended. In fact it flatters me that people are surprised. I have often experienced this. See a slightly idiotic playboy who, suddenly, is less stupid than we thought. It’s often the difference that creates seduction. I experienced it as a comedian and as an actor and I still experience it since I started making films. I love reading the reviews, it’s very nourishing. I have sometimes been of the same opinion as the press when they reviewed one of my films. I just wanted to say: “Let me surprise you, give me the benefit of the doubt.”

You are being politically incorrect…

I wanted to push the sliders, this is the first time that I’m not trying to target those I’m going to please. With Sarah Kaminsky, my co-writer, the only limits we had was the credibility of the story. After my first two very urban films, I wanted a rural western. When I was young, at 13, I had a super-8 camera and I made short gangster films and stunts with my little cars. Then, as an adult, humor caught up with me. For “A Bear in the Jura”, I shook it all up to make a cocktail of what the kid that I was and the adult that I am loved. Try to recapture the atmosphere of “The Dominici Affair” with Gabin and also that of Ventura or Bourvil’s films. For me, that’s what cinema is: ordinary people living extraordinary stories.

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“I am lucky to have not yet said everything, nor shown everything about myself”

It is above all a film which evokes the small arrangements that everyone makes with morality… Is this your vision of France today?

I like the idea that we could say to ourselves: “What would I do if like that, in the trunk of a car, I found 2 million euros?” I take a little bit and leave the rest. We keep our own morals, but we’re not all as white as snow. And so much the better. Afterwards, I have no desire to write a social column. A lot of people talk to me about the issue of migrants which surfaces in the film, but there was no desire to make it a theme. When we write, we become a blotter of the world around us. Like Mr. Jourdain, I chronicle today’s France without realizing it.

From Laure Calamy to Benoît Poelvoorde, Joséphine de Meaux or Emmanuelle Devos, did you want to bring together actors from different backgrounds?

I chose actors who are not necessarily from my family. And I told them: “You are going to play in the first degree and I am responsible for bringing the comedy into the production.” Some of them were almost surprised by my proposal, thinking that we weren’t from the same cinema family. I knew we were.

Have you ever suffered from a public image that differs from who you really are?

It’s always difficult to erase the funny software from people’s heads. Better to start from the bottom and work your way up. I am neither bitter nor sour, on the contrary, I am lucky to have not yet said or shown everything about myself. I was almost naked in “Camping”, but it takes a certain maturity to get naked as you really are. I spent a whole career wanting to be loved, that was my goal. With age helping, it’s time to love yourself. Favor quality over quantity, stop trying to please everyone, because you also end up displeasing a large number of people. In any case, I’ve never been in the cinema business, so I’m not looking for anything. And I never suffered from it.

Even if it means seeing yourself trapped in a character like Patrick Chirac in “Camping”…

So. Even if, over the course of the films, I made it evolve towards more poetry. Today, “Camping” is over, I’ve been around it. Without Patrick Chirac, there would not have been “Everyone Standing” or “A Bear in the Jura”. He helped me establish my notoriety and allowed me to exist in the cinema. A friend recently told me that to do a counter job you must already have a job. Patrick Chirac is anything but a fault for me. But now I want to explore my weaknesses more.

“My ambition was to have a nice car and sign three autographs during the week. I even made a signature just in case…”

What did young Franck dream of living in Petit-Quevilly? And is he happy today with the progress he has made?

I dreamed of going skiing in winter and riding horses in America. Get out of my HLM and live like the people I saw on TV. Be an adventurer. Even at the conservatory, I didn’t think about the career I have now. I actually exceeded my dreams. Actor, and even more director, I didn’t even know it could exist. My ambition was to have a nice car and sign three autographs during the week. I even made a signature just in case…

However, there is this incredible episode at the start of your career, which few people know, when you landed a role in “Coronation Street”, the English equivalent of “Plus belle la vie”, a real institution across the Channel…

I was the somewhat phony young lead in teen films, like in Michel Lang’s “A nous les jeux” by Michel Lang, in 1985, and strangely I was offered the role of a thug. I went to castings, left photos like so many others at the time. And so I arrived there, in this series with 27 million spectators. I went to see my own America and it was England.

Didn’t there come a time when you had the feeling of accepting a bit of everything, the good and the bad, by being the funny guy on duty?

Yes, maybe. I’ve never made a film just for money, but I’ve made them for the wrong reasons. When I started, even after several main roles, I was able to accept an extra in a variety show to play a gendarme who locked C. Jérôme in a police van. And at the same time giving oral expression lessons to lawyers. Sometimes I didn’t have the courage to say no. When I co-wrote “All Inclusive”, I knew that the project was not good. But we go there out of friendship. When I make “Cinéman” by Yann Moix, an imperfect film but which I continue to find interesting, I know from the start that the DNA is not good. Poelvoorde had refused the role. We go there saying to ourselves: “Either it’s going to become cult, or it’s going to fail.”

“You always have to think about the public. Making people laugh or making people cry is above all about entertaining people.”

How do you see comedy evolving in France?

She changes and that’s normal. A comedy actor always has a limited period of success. This was true for everyone, even Funès or Pierre Richard, who had made other films before or after fame. Today, I only see Christian Clavier in terms of longevity. Even if comedies have fewer entries than before. There is always a moment when we get tired. Among the younger generation, I admire Philippe Lacheau who knows how to write comedies in addition to being an adorable guy full of doubts. Yesterday on the phone, he told me: “If my next film doesn’t make 3 million admissions, we’ll say it’s a flop.” That’s a good summary.

Are you a customer of comedies as a spectator?

Yes, even if I want to be made to laugh, not to be forced to laugh. That’s all the nuance. Cinema should not impose anything. When I go to the cinema, I want to go to films like “L’innocent” by Louis Garrel, “Ouistreham” by Emmanuel Carrère. And I love the cinema of Stéphane Brizé.

Would you like to turn to darker films, like the role you recently played in “Prodigieuses”, by Frédéric and Valentin Potier, for example?

Yes, but, at the same time, it’s better that I try my hand at supporting roles, because the public has given me the right to exist with comedy. Now, I don’t want to impose on him the pretension of pleasing him in the drama. Before “Everybody Stand” came out, some wondered if the public would follow. Ultimately yes. For “Rumba la vie”, this was less the case. It was perhaps too dark, the proposition was less clear. You shouldn’t just want to have fun. You always have to think about the public. Making people laugh or making people cry is above all about entertaining people.