Two “Miserables” soon on French screens with Vincent Lindon and Grégory Gadebois as Jean Valjean

Éric Besnard and Fred Cavayé have embarked on a new adaptation of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece.

Like Vincent Lindon, actor Grégory Gadebois, from the theater, is preparing to play Jean Valjean on French screens, the hero of “Miserables”. This is the second recently announced adaptation of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. The shooting of this film, directed by Éric Besnard (Cash, Louise Violet ) began on January 13 and is due to end on February 27, its producers announced in a press release. Titled “Jean Valjean”, he comes back to “the origin of one of the greatest heroes of French literature”.

In the main role: actor Grégory Gadebois, 48 ​​years old, often confined to supporting roles (from I accuse from Polanski to The Syndicalist). He shares the poster with Bernard Campan in the costume of a religious, Isabelle Carré playing the latter’s sister and Alexandra Lamy, their servant in the home which takes in the former convict.

After Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers, Le Comte de Monte Cristo), it is Victor Hugo’s turn to experience renewed interest on screen. Another project to adapt Misérables is in progress, signed Fred Cavayé (The goats!, Farewell Mr Haffmann), with Vincent Lindon in the title role, and filming should begin in the summer.

A role already played in the 1950s by Jean Gabin and which the flagship actor of auteur cinema, aged 65, had dreamed of for a very long time, he told AFP on Monday: “Jean Valjean, I love this character, it’s like I took them all and put them together.” “And then, above all, it’s the first time in my life that I’m going to attack a film by telling myself that I’m very sure that the script is good! It’s been verified, it’s a very good script”he joked, about the work of Victor Hugo.