When we talk about the essentials of French cinema, the name of Vincent Lindon stands out by itself. But, despite what one might imagine after forty years of career and a plethora of roles, Vincent Lindon is still not satisfied with cinema. The Choicenew film by Gilles Bourdos is his fourth film of the year 2024, after notably being shown at the Second Act by Quentin Dupieux and Like a son by Nicolas Boukhrief. But, new, in his new film Vincent Lindon is alone on screen. The actor plays Joseph Cross, a married construction site manager with two children, with a perfectly organized existence. But that evening, alone behind the wheel, he must make a decision that could ruin his life. Without any respite, the phone calls follow one another and little by little reveal the pieces of the drama playing out under the passenger compartment, while the car continues to speed through the night without ever stopping…
Now well established in French cinema, Vincent Lindon can now afford to choose his roles. However, how do we still manage to seduce him, he who has seen and done almost everything? By offering him new challenges, this human depth that he enjoys playing. So when he received the script from Gilles Bourdos, Vincent Lindon did not hesitate:
“I read this script, I loved it and I immediately called the director to tell him “I’m doing it”. It was afterwards that I realized the difficulty of the situation. I was going to be alone playing in a car for the whole film But what really interested me was the inverse proportion between the power and the smallness of the character On the one hand, he builds immense buildings. on the other he sees the structure of his life collapsing without being able to do anything about it. On the one hand, he manages 450 people and on the other he finds himself alone in his car, he is not important at all, he. almost becomes a child again But I was passionate about this subject because choice is something that obsesses me in life And then I love characters who make redemptions. I hate the waste of laziness. not doing as much as you can. For me, freedom is not doing what you want but doing what you must.”
Skin-deep characters
Here in the shoes of a construction site manager, Vincent Lindon has never hesitated to immerse himself in characters with common professions, with “ordinary” existences: a lifeguard for Welcome (2010), a Human Resources manager for Another World (2022). But each of these characters, the actor likes to think that they never completely fade from him.
“I hope the characters I travel through leave things with me. I like to reassure myself by telling myself that my roles require me to behave differently after having played them. I can't be a character and then completely dismiss it as an artificial object. I always try to keep a little bit of everything in my trunk, so that it stays a little bit in me.”
Because ultimately, more than cinema, what Vincent Lindon considers most dear to him are the people who come to see it:
“I'm obsessed with people. They are my passion. Drinking, talking, going out and meeting people on the street… I'm crazy about people. But I don't say that to make them like me. Quite simply, it’s only the human relationship that interests me. I ask questions, I like to be asked. My ultimate goal on screen is for viewers to come away from the film and say “you see that, it’s me.”
