On the phone, Eric Wagner speaks. Quickly. And a lot. Nothing and everything. As if we had to make up for lost time. His book on hitchhiking. Basketball. Ecology. The cigarette. His friend Lilian Dejean, killed on September 8, which takes the discussion to Grenoble, where he spent many years, a high school student parachuted into the Alps “because I had been kicked out of all the schools in Paris”. We talk about nothing and everything. About his new life too, after 50 years, in a small town in Gard.
1001 lives then, and even a little more than that, but a common thread, the game: “I play. I act, I play basketball, chess, tarot, belote with the little old people near my house. We had a tournament two weeks ago and my friend La Truite won,” in case you were wondering…
Me game. When we ask Eric Wagner his profession, he answers “actor”. Seen in the cinema. Seen on television in Candice Renoir, More beautiful life or Such a big sun. And in Groland“it’s often rebroadcast.” Seen on Arte too, a bunch of years ago, in the series The Invincibles which revealed Jonathan Cohen. “In both seasons, I played his best friend, Mitch.” Let's be precise: the slightly stupid best friend. And then the guardian of the Eiffel Tower in a film with Nicolas Bedos. A grocer. A homeless person. A TGV passenger who inflates Gérard Lanvin and even a repentant Nazi in a comedy with Eric and Ramzy… So much for the Allociné CV. Small appearances most of the time, a face in the background, a few words, a gust of wind, never leading role and not young leading either. “In the casting for a series with Tomer Sisley, I applied for the role of the prosecutor, well I was chosen for the role of a fisherman, that pretty much sums up the way the cinema sees me,” he laughs .
Houda Benyamina, Jacques Audiard, Jean-Baptiste Durand…
Its news is still a small role, thirteenth in the protocol order of the credits. Eric Wagner stars in Houda Benyamina's new film, All for onea modern and feminist variation of the three musketeers who in fact were four. The film is released on January 22. “I have a scene that took two days to shoot. It's not much, a scene, I can't reveal much about it, except that I play a bandit who gets fined. » He pauses then continues: “I dreamed of being in a film in costume. It’s done… even if in the film, in this scene, I’m naked.” He doesn't reveal any secrets here: we see it in the trailer.
The Grenoblois at heart laughs and continues to tell us his dreams. “I dreamed of being directed by Houda Benyamina, whose film I really loved Divinesa jewel. At the casting, I was as hot as a fryer, I wanted to take my chance.” And now ? “I dream of being in a film by Jacques Audiard, who once again managed to wow me with Emilia Perez whereas musical comedies, basically, I don't care about steaks. And I dream of one day working with Jean-Baptiste Durand. You saw it, Junkyard dogwith Anthony Bajon and Raphaël Quenard? It's brilliant, it's unique. I had the chance to meet him, Jean-Baptiste, we live not far away, the guy is also a real talent. This is not always the case in this environment. »
-Make the front page of Télé-Poche
He continues again, one story a minute: “In All for onethere is Oulaya Amamra. She's the ultimate actress Oulaya, she's too strong, she's the Ikea actress, she can play everything, the woman-child, the femme fatale, the woman orchestra. In animatedthe level of intensity she puts in is mind-blowing. It's on the level of Pacino in A dog's afternoon…”. And here Eric Wagner goes in another direction, from one film to another, from one anecdote to the next. He quotes a sentence from Flashdancelike a mantra: “When you give up on your dreams, you die”. “I think about this sentence every day and I pursue my dream. I've had cinema in my skin since I was little, when I watched The Last Sessionfilms with James Cagney or Cary Grant. My desire for cinema comes from there and it has never left me. »
He will also be featured in Rest in peace…if you cana comedy filmed in Grenoble, “a big role this time”, in which he is Waly Dia’s dad. The release date is not yet known. “We’ll see, it was a great human adventure in any case.” In the meantime, the famous scene in All for one“the world of cinema will see it, will see me and I hope that it will mark the beginning of something…” A dream, again. He stands ready. “If tomorrow I am asked to learn Kazakh for a nice film, give me two days and I will speak Kazakh directly.” A dream, always. Eric Wagner dreams of great roles, with great actors, great dialogues… “Yeah, all that, and then making the front page of Télé-Poche”.
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