How do you portray a legend like Charles Aznavour on screen? This question plagued Tahar Rahim before he accepted his role in Mr. Aznavoura film directed by Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade, which will be released on October 23.
“Aznavour is an immense personality, an immense artist,” the actor concedes, when questioned by “Sept à huit” about his interpretation. “I said to myself: the person and the personality are almost impossible to reach. I wondered how I was going to do it, I saw the mountain.”
Obsession
Fortunately, Tahar Rahim “loves” the transformation. “The idea of becoming someone else seems impossible, almost schizophrenic, but having the ability to physically change, and at the same time be able to drown, give everything to the character in a transformation, it allows me to have more confidence in myself and to believe even more in an immediate truth. But also there is something physical that is similar to what high-level athletes can experience,” he enthuses.
To achieve this result, the actor did a lot of observation work to find “the right posture to move like him.” And to make matters worse, “there is no physical resemblance at the start,” he admits.
Four hours of makeup were necessary for the actor to get into the skin of the star in order to “look like him” without “disappearing completely underneath”. To do this, it is necessary to use microprosthetics, to pluck the eyebrows to imitate the circumflex line of the singer who died in 2018. But not only that. To reproduce the slightly prominent lower lip, he wears a splint during the three months preceding the shooting.
The man who came to Paris a bit like the great Charles, penniless or almost, also had to do an incredible amount of vocal preparation work.
The feat of the voice
Because what is most impressive in the film’s trailer is the voice. “It’s me who sings,” admits the actor, with a half-embarrassed smile. “You have to know that in musical biopics you use an imitator.”
Despite everything, he decides to give it a try by taking “six to eight hours of singing lessons per week non-stop for six months”, until the vocal coach considers that his protégé is ready to slip into the voice of the character. If the high notes have been slightly mixed to get as close as possible to the singer of Bohemiaeverything else is therefore interpreted by the actor of the Snake.
A hard worker, he admits to “bordering on obsession sometimes”, which is not without consequences for those around him. His partner Leila Bekhti, whom he met on the set ofA Prophetis said to have confessed: “I can’t take it anymore, I can hear Charles Aznavour yelling at my children at home, it’s becoming embarrassing.”
