He too is a star of the Olympics. Thomas Jolly, 42, revealed to the world his talent as a director, becoming the “conductor” of the four ceremonies of the Paris 2024 Games. A colossal project that he led with audacity. His mission was nevertheless announced to be perilous and it was, especially when the rain invited itself to the most anticipated of the ceremonies, the opening ceremony on July 26 on the Seine. Thomas Jolly had been working on this show for two years. Well before the show, much discussed and acclaimed by a large part of the public, the native of Rouen had launched several ideas which, for various reasons, never came to fruition.
A 3.5km conveyor belt, hot air balloons and mirrors under the Eiffel Tower…
This summer, the director of Starmania had mentioned the crazy idea of an upside-down Eiffel Tower erected in front of the famous Parisian monument. Questioned by Télérama this Monday, the day after the closing ceremony, he listed other “impossible” projects, nipped in the bud: a 3.5km conveyor belt on a viaduct around the site, a nod to the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, mirrors under the Eiffel Tower, nautical ballets in the Seine or even hot air balloons that would carry cinema screens above the Tuileries Gardens.
Thomas Jolly also had a crazy idea for Zinédine Zidane. If Zizou was one of the big players in the opening ceremony that he launched with Jamel Debbouze at the Stade de France before a memorable passage of the flame with Rafael Nadal, Thomas Jolly’s initial idea was much more ambitious. It was about the “flyover of the flame carried by Zinédine Zidane suspended from a helicopter at too low an altitude above Paris”, he confided before adding: “He was OK.” Others were less so…
- RMC Sport