Roschdy Zem’s career seemed set in stone at first glance, his life seems to have been a fairy tale, but the reality is quite different. It is thanks to his strength of character, that over time his quiet strength, his resilience and his passion for the game have been called. He was placed from the age of 18 months – and until the age of six years – in a host family in Belgium, then his first theater was the Clignancourt flea market. It was André Téchiné, who first believed in himself with the films I don’t kiss (1991) et My favorite season (1993). In 1995, Xavier Beauvois offered him the notable role of a drug addict in Don’t forget that you are going to die.
Today he is starring in the film Winter in Sokcho by Koya Kamura. The story takes place in a seaside town in South Korea, where Soo-ha, a 23-year-old girl, lives alongside her mother, a fish seller. She works in a boarding house and one day, a Frenchman shows up and reminds her of her origins, with this father who abandoned her before she was born.
franceinfo: I have the impression that this film talks about things that are close to your heart?
Roshdy Earth: There is a crossroads that we don’t necessarily anticipate, but which always occurs at a specific moment in your life and your existence. Koya’s film arrived at that moment, through a somewhat bearish character, the kind of man we fantasize about being, these personalities who don’t seek to be loved and who live with their art. He has great sensitivity, great fragility, at the same time a kind of quiet strength and above all, there is a lot of gentleness. What also appealed to me about this character is that he is asexual, there is no seduction with him. He is in his own world, it is very difficult to enter it and at the same time, there is a kind of character who is a bit alone and who we want to help, who we want to support, who we want to accompany him because he is curious. It’s interesting.
You have always been able to maintain an element of mystery, or in any case modesty, even in your private life. We understand that this film is important to you today.
“I am reaching a point in my life where we strive to find and search for what we have not yet produced.”
Roschdy Zemat franceinfo
I may have been for a very long time in a form of mastery of my work and my person, and there is a desire, indeed, to say to myself: even if it means continuing this profession, let’s give up everything and what if we went looking for this that there is something more intimate in itself and that I may have remembered from previous years.
We realize to what extent there is a before and after of the autobiographical story released in 2022, The Lost Steps.
Yes, it was important and essential. First of all for me, obviously, it’s my therapy. I have never been followed so ultimately, this job allows you to do your own therapy through a story, a story, a film, by telling yourself and also telling who your people are, your family. It’s true that I come from a family, like many people with an immigrant background, of uprooted people and it was interesting to see, 50 years later, the result of all that. What happened? How did we succeed, or not, in adapting and integrating? We often talk about integration, assimilating, words that I hate. But there you have it, it’s a whole series of criteria and factors with which we had to find our place without getting lost.
What is surprising in this film is that there are still unbreakable blood ties. Does this also resonate with you?
-Yes, it resonates for me, but it also resonates for the director, Koya Kamura, who is Franco-Japanese, so he also has this dual culture, I know what he’s talking about.
“It’s one thing to live in a country and at the same time have a face that takes us somewhere else.”
Roschdy Zemat franceinfo
You have to live with it and I have made it a strength, but we have not all managed to turn it into something positive. Some carried it around like a burden, others like an obstacle. The film tells how to find your place, above all how to find your harmony and deal with others. It’s other people who are the problem, it’s through their looks that you develop complexes.
How did you experience the gaze of others as a child?
I proceeded in stages. First by completely rejecting what I was, where I came from. I experienced this way of having a shameful past, illiterate parents. The next stage was something completely opposite. It was a kind of exaggerated, demanding pride. Then, with time, experience and encounters, we find our place. Finally, like everyone, we all have paths and it is up to us to make it a strength, something positive, and to project ourselves towards a future, with what we are. Not necessarily trying to please, trying to remain yourself, it’s a real challenge, it’s a challenge.
What were you afraid of?
To disappoint my parents. Our name is displayed and I shouldn’t shame the family. It’s a difficult job because in reality, we don’t choose the leading roles. From this point of view, I am very lucky.
What made you become the man you are today? Is it just imagination?
I created a lot of imagination for myself and today I am in another register. I am very tellurian and I tend to look at what is happening around me. The story is there, right next to you.
