when the actor spoke of his meeting with Gérard Jugnot and his difficult beginnings

Actor Michel Blanc died on Friday October 4 at the age of 72. Guest of the show “En aside” in October 2023, the actor remembered his meeting with Gérard Jugnot in high school, and his difficult beginnings in the theater.

Childhood friends. The actor and director Michel Blanc, unforgettable in the role of Jean-Claude Dusse in the saga “Les Bronzés” within the Splendid troupe, died this Friday at the age of 72. In October 2023, in full promotion of the film “Marie-line and her judge”, he agreed to participate in the show “En aside” on CANAL+, where he talked about little-known moments of his existence. He notably returned to his meeting with Gérard Jugnot on the high school benches.

“We started doing theater together in high school. We didn’t perform Poiret and Serrault’s sketches, but we had the same attraction for their humor. Then, when we left high school, each on our own, Gérard and I tried to write sketches. And it was very inspired by the humor of Jean Poiret,” he explained. Michel Blanc also spoke about the difficulties encountered at the start of his career in finding his voice on stage.

“I hadn’t found my comedy. For three years, we worked with Tsilla Chelton who was an absolutely extraordinary teacher, but I had not found my humor, my way of making people laugh. Gérard found it very quickly. From the first sketches in the café-theaters, Gérard made the room burst into laughter and I still got angry because I hadn’t found my sense of humor,” he revealed. It was ultimately by discovering Woody Allen that Michel Blanc found inspiration. “When I saw a Woody Allen film, I said to myself that it looks like me and that’s how I can make people laugh too. And that’s where Jean-Claude Dusse was born,” he explained.