« C“is the best actor of his generation, and he still has a great margin of progression,” says Belgian filmmaker Fabrice du Welz when he talks about his phenomenal actor of the Dossier maldororAnnon of Brons.
At the top of the poster, the latter camps an immersed gendarme in a case of pedophilia until obsession. A “freely inspired” story of the hunt for the sinister Marc Dutroux. Already named three times to the César, Anthony Bajon, at 30, has become a must in tricolor cinema.
The round face, immense green eyes, a child’s smile … In a profession laid by acute melonite, Anthony is a separate case. In interview, he is incredibly sincere, and refuses the usual elements of language. Crazy about football, he is the monk soldier of cinema: he constantly works, declines the worldly, does not smoke, does not drink, sets set every night at 10:30 pm. He envisages his career as a marathon and already displays a Filmo Immaculate: Prayer, you deserve a love, Teddy, Athena, Casse dog, love phew and today the formidable Dossier maldoror.
“Cinema saved my life,” says Anthony Bajon. Son of an accountant and a locksmith, he grew up in Essonne. “I didn’t really have access to culture. To go to the cinema, we had to take the RER D and go to Paris, because our neighborhood cinema had been burned. »At 5 years old, he discovered dumbfounded The Lion King to the Grand Rex. “I told my mother that that was what I wanted to do: tell stories. I had been crossed by thousands of emotions in 90 minutes. »»
Anthony’s parents have no connection with the cinema world and their son has great difficulties in school. “Zero, I was zero!” Declares Antony, visibly still injured by this poorly healed wound. I was really not good, I had trouble with learning. I was dyspraxic and at school, in the early 2000s, we did not put a word about it. For teachers, I was zero, end! At the end of the third, they wanted to orient me in learning. It was horrible because I wanted to do a film school and for that, I had to have the bac. My mother begged the principal and the main teacher for me to integrate the second. In high school, for the only time in my life, I had good grades. When you want something, you have to fight! »»
A burnout and two years at rest
After the bac, Anthony made a film school which he abandons very quickly. “Integrating the world of cinema, I felt like it was Everest. But I never considered a plan B. It was cinema and nothing else. He therefore decides to do his training alone. On notebooks, he notes everything that challenges him when he sees a film or when he reads an acting interview. “I always have notebooks with me where I note words, sentences, it’s very important. To try to unravel, he makes portraits of him which he sends with his CV to all agencies and productions, runs the castings. No one answers him.
But soon, he plays in short films, then made appearances in long The ogres With Adèle Haenel, Our Roaring Twenties of André Téchiné or Rodin by Jacques Doillon… then he passes the cast of Prayer (2018) by Cédric Kahn, for a secondary role. “I have returned a dozen times, and when Cédric gave me the main role, I think I made a mini stroke. It was intense [rires]. Cédric was very hard, he always asked me more, but the experience was very formative. Every morning, I told myself that I would never have such a chance that I could not miss the train. So I gave everything! »»
As a result, Anthony Bajon receives an interpretation prize in Berlin, the criticism compares him to the young Gérard Depardieu and he becomes the new hope for French cinema. He then makes very intelligent career choices and plays in On behalf of the earth, Teddy, Paris-Brest, Another world… “Then I chained the 52 days of shooting the series The world of tomorrowwhere I embody Kool Shen, then with Athena et Casse dog. It was very intense, and I was forced to stop everything for two years, I made a burnout, my body couldn’t take it anymore. »»
-On the Dutroux track
Since then, Anthony has returned to resume his crown. We saw it last October during a shock appearance in Love phew by Gilles Lellouche and he therefore carries today on his shoulders The Maldoror filewhere his gendarme character is inspired by that, very real, by René Michaux, the soldier who had descended into the cellar of Dutroux and who had heard whispers, without finding the girls …
“There is a whole nation that was destroyed by this story and I am offered to play the main role of the film, it was completely crazy! As soon as I read the script, I knew I wanted to do it. It was very physical, I injured myself several times. The role asked for such a commitment, I had to give everything because my character is always in tension, I wanted to be credible a gun in hand, by doing my waterfalls. I injured myself in the shoulder, I took a blank ball in the neck … I think it’s my most important film with Prayer. »
To discover
The kangaroo of the day
Answer
Will this great film Noir finally bring him recognition of the general public? Anthony did everything to, with an intensive promotion, but he is already elsewhere. “This year, I am shooting my first feature film as a director, The world too bigin the football world, with Karim Leklou. And I want to continue to flourish in front of the other’s camera. My first job is an actor. I am proof that one can be zero at school and succeed. It may be better to accompany young people … “Anthony smiles, it suits him well …
The Maldoror file by Fabrice du Welz. Indoors.
