Jean Dujardin arrives this Friday on Paramount + in a series on Zorro. The creator of the series, Benjamin Charbit tells how he modernized the character.
It’s the event of the new school year. Jean Dujardin dons the costume of Zorro this Friday in a highly anticipated series broadcast on Paramount+, then at Christmas on France 2. An eight-episode series co-created by Noé Debré (Parliament) and Benjamin Charbit (Under control) whose ambition is to reinvent the famous hero, whose real name is Don Diego de la Vega, by exploring his intimacy and his schizophrenia.
“We didn’t try to be scathing,” Benjamin Charbit explained to BFMTV.com. “We played with the character of course, but we didn’t want to break the statue. That would have been a bit too easy. That was the whole point: to modernize the character while leaving his image somewhat intact.”
Filmed in Andalusia and Toledo, with a budget of 24 million euros, the series takes place in 1821 in Los Angeles, then under Spanish rule. Having become mayor of the city 20 years after putting away the Zorro costume, Don Diego de la Vega is forced to put on the masked avenger’s outfit again in the face of the greed of an unscrupulous businessman, Don Emmanuel (Eric Elmosnino).
Love triangle for two
Also despised by his father (André Dussollier), Don Diego de la Vega is a naive man whose marriage is failing. His wife Gabriella (Audrey Dana) is cheating on him with… Zorro. She has fallen under the spell of the masked hero, without knowing that he is her husband. Quickly, the adventure story gives way to vaudeville. The expected pastiche turns into a reflection on the wear and tear of the couple and the place of desire.
“When Marc proposed to me ZorroI had a bit of a flash,” recalls Benjamin Charbit. “A hero who is not recognized and who disguises himself, that made me think of Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder, my idols of sophisticated comedy from the 1930s and 1950s. Very quickly, I had in mind this unfolding of the first episode, a vaudeville where the husband and the lover are the same person.”
A love triangle between two people that brings all its originality to the series. “When Zorro arrives, she loses her Latin,” adds Audrey Dana. “She falls in love at first sight. She can’t imagine for a second that this man is her husband. It’s a reflection on the couple, on what we hide from each other, why do we need a mask to allow ourselves certain things.”
Step a pastiche
The role was tailor-made for Jean Dujardin, a fan of the masked hero since he was 6 years old and who played the character in Eric Judor’s satirical series. Plane tree. However, there is no question of making it a pastiche like OSS 117, a genre in which the actor excels. “It’s thought of completely differently,” insists Benjamin Charbit.
“In a parody, there is distance, almost nonchalance. The characters don’t really feel the emotions they feel. OSS is a bit like Diego’s inverted brother. OSS doesn’t understand much about the world around him. Diego is a good man, an idealist. We are very far from OSS.”
The series offers a realistic dive into Los Angeles in the 1820s. “I wanted a very realistic, very noble artistic direction,” says Benjamin Charbit. “We cut the sound and we have an extremely well-made period film. It also helps to establish our universe, so that we believe in it. It’s not easy to have a Spanish character, who lives in New Mexico, who speaks French and for us to still believe in it!”
Benjamin Charbit relied on “talented directors” from the new generation: Jean-Baptiste Saurel, noticed this summer with the delirious comedy Zénithaland Emilie Noblet, hailed in the spring for Repeated twicea romantic comedy in a Latin class. A real gamble. “Jean trusted us,” notes Benjamin Charbit. “He saw their energy. He saw that it was interesting to work with this generation.”
“They each have their own style and they proposed something quite different and quite new in comedy,” adds Audrey Dana. “They brought modernity because they are already young.”
Feminist role
The actress also surprises with a character who on screen is as imposing as Jean Dujardin’s Zorro. “In the unconscious, there is no chick in Zorro. Or maybe they are really behind it. We think more of the sergeant, of Bernardo, of the big bad guys. I didn’t expect such a rich, complex character who is going to fight, ride horses, who has a psychological journey,” says the actress.
“I was very surprised by the modernity and the subtlety of the humor in the scripts. It’s one of the most beautiful roles I’ve done. It’s eminently feminist. I didn’t expect this tone or this role. I fell off my chair when I read Zorro “I was so delighted,” says Audrey Dana, whose role reveals various surprises.
The series is also particularly generous in its twists and turns. “I wanted the series to move at 200 miles an hour,” agrees Benjamin Charbit. “That from episode to episode, it never stops and that the viewer can never imagine what happens next.” This sense of rhythm should guarantee a great success for this Zorrowhich for the moment should not have a second season, according to Benjamin Charbit.
