Romain Duris: “I still feel bored. As if I had just started”

This is your second film with Guillaume Senez. You were very involved in the preparation of “A missing part”. Was it important to you to work with him again?

Of course, Guillaume is quite unique in his working method. He has a dialogue version of his entire film, which he doesn't give us. By improvising, he gets each actor to tighten up, removing words, favoring key words, to finally arrive at approximately the dialogues he had written beforehand. This way of working is quite brilliant and quite unique. This creates a lot of freedom, a lot of spontaneity, a lot of listening between us. Guillaume can take me wherever he wants, I will always be willing to follow him, because I love this method.

Does this search for instinctiveness and spontaneity correspond to the actor that you are?

I love it! I noticed that when the text is too written, it's not necessarily where I'm most comfortable. For example, in period films, there is an exercise in mouthing, you have to monopolize the text. I've never made films in Alexandrians… Afterwards, when we move forward, we try to have a little more fun with the things we've never done. But I really like instinct. I really like silences….

It's not as easy to improvise in Japanese… How did you work on the language?

It's purely phonetic. As I love this language, this culture, I tried to find little words to add to shake up the rhythm a little, even to surprise my interlocutor. The danger is that all the passages in French were in this method of improvisation and that the Japanese would settle us a little more. And then I felt Guillaume was fond of that. As soon as I could put a coherent word in the moment, which could break the repetition, I did not deprive myself of it. It was pretty awesome. I was happy to be able to throw out little things like that. Otherwise, yes, it was very phonetic, but with great pleasure. I had given myself time. I rehearsed every day for four months and I was good at this language. I find it magnificent, crazy to pretend to be Japanese.

“Our battles”, an x-ray of a world of work in full transformation

You spent quite a bit of time in Tokyo for filming. Did you feel what your character might feel as a foreigner in Japan?

Yes, but it never bothered me. Going to Japan for a specific period of time, three months, six months, a year, I think it's just fun. My place was dreamed of. I spent my life on a bike, crisscrossing the streets of Tokyo. It was just happiness. The people are adorable. On the other hand, when it comes to working, having a situation, a family life, there is clearly legislation that is really different, administrative problems… There, we can encounter complications.

Your character has been living in Japan for 10 years. How did you put yourself in his shoes, when you know the culture less well than him?

From the first days of filming, I told the producers, who saw the images and had a little perspective on what we were doing: I don't want it to look touristy. I want us to feel that it has been there for 10 years, that it is not folklore. It's his life. How do we play this? This necessarily involved working on the language. But also by the fact that I have always loved Japan. I have done Japanese calligraphy myself. So there was a familiarity. The love we have for the culture means that we will try to work as best as possible. This is also what means that, in the image, we appear to have been there for 10 years. I arrived a little before the start of filming. I spent my life wandering the streets, going to shops, going to the market. As soon as I could have the same relationship with the country as someone who lives there, I favored it.

How did you build the bond with Mei Cirne-Masuki, the young actress who plays your daughter?

The great luck is that we shot in chronology. What was pretty crazy was that this very intense relationship, which is kind of the heart of the film, in terms of a day's work, it wasn't much. Barely got to the heart of the matter, she was already leaving three days later… At first, we sniffed each other, we observed each other. Then the words arrive. Then there is this journey that she provokes, then we leave with a great emotional scene. But I don't want to have the hindsight of what the director needs at each stage. I'm just trying to live in the moment with this young girl, who happens to live in Paris, a kilometer from me. She speaks French but, by her temperament, she was so far from me. Was it shyness because she wasn't an actress? It opened little by little, very slightly. I really preferred that, rather than a too modern kid who would have checked me out and said: “Do you know the neighborhood bakery? It’s cool.” She wasn't in there at all. It really didn't hurt to tell myself that I hadn't seen this girl for 10 years and that she was so close to me…

“La Nuit se drags”, a first film with Romain Duris which stands out in the Belgian landscape

Not long ago, you were starring in another Belgian film, “The Night drags“ by Michiel Blanchart… What is your relationship to Belgian cinema? Is it another industry?

No. I just feel like I work in a cooler industry. It's not bootlicking. I have done several shoots in Belgium, for films that are not supposed to take place in Belgium. I know the Belgian teams quite a bit and I like them a lot. There is a generosity in the work and a way of being relaxed. I rarely felt tension and pressure on set here. Each time, I had some pretty crazy vibes. I even filmed just after the attacks in Brussels. The city was sealed off. Even in that atmosphere, work was privileged. We told ourselves that we were lucky enough to be able to make art and that we should take advantage of it…

You shot your first film, The Young Peril30 years ago… How do you look back on this career, which began somewhat by chance, with a wild casting call?

I was painting… I always have dreams, otherwise I would say to myself: relax. But I'm still in a funk. I always have an appetite. As if I had just started. I never lose that mindset that it could end tomorrow. I can tell myself: calm down, rest, but it has no effect on me. I'm always on edge, insatiable. I always want more. I can't even tell you what. But in any case, it burns and that's so much the better.

At the time, did you imagine becoming a French cinema star?

I don't see myself like that at all. I advance project after project, trying to do the best possible. All this star aspect, having arrived at something, I have absolutely no view on that. Sometimes it could calm something that's eating away at me. Being happy with yourself, with the progress you have made, these are not my values. Maybe I'll tell you that in 20 years… Besides, I don't know if it's something you acquire with age. It's more a question of temperament.

Do you still get so nervous before a shoot?

I may have it, but I use experiences where I had to have a lot more stage fright to calm me down. Remember when you made that movie with Ridley Scott (All the money in the world in 2017, Editor’s note)that you didn't speak English very well, that you had to take on an Italian accent… Do you remember? There were five cameras, 200 extras. You freaked out, but you took the shot. We know that stage fright is annoying, but it's not a bad feeling. It means we are passionate.