An essential face of French cinema and the cinematic embodiment of an angry man with obvious flaws, Vincent Lindon received the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday for his role in “Playing with Fire”.
He plays a father confronted with the drift of one of his sons towards the violent extreme right. “The love of the father for his sons, the love of sons for their father, how we live with this idea that we have brought a child into the world who, at one point, frees himself and not always in the way we want, this is the subject that fascinated me the most” in this feature film, the French actor explained to AFP on the Lido.
“Obviously, it’s interesting to make a film where there is a social framework, a societal subject that is taking on incredible importance today. And if we can participate in one way or another in the awakening or, in any case, the questioning of people, it’s very interesting for an actor.”
Lindon follows this human and social vein in particular with his favorite director, Stéphane Brizé. Their collaboration was rewarded with a prize for male interpretation at Cannes and a César for best actor for “La loi du marché” (2015).
In this scathing film about the brutality of the working world, he played Thierry, a long-term unemployed man and father of a disabled child, going from humiliating job interviews to useless internships.
Then came “En Guerre” (2018), where he played a union representative. “I don’t have a monopoly on revolt, but if I can help…”, he told AFP. But also “Un autre monde” (2021), where he played a manager caught in the grip of capitalism.
– “Mr. Everyman” –
The 65-year-old actor says he “gets excited whenever he can play the role of Mr. Everyman.”
Slipping with equal ease into the skin of a good guy or a thug, he has an impetuous and anxious character. Shaken by tics off camera, he gives the impression of entering into his characters with great naturalness.
His filmography ranges from socially resonant works to thrillers, comedies and auteur films. He has been directed by Claude Lelouch, Diane Kurys, Claire Denis, Benoît Jacquot, Pierre Jolivet, Coline Serreau and Alain Cavalier, who has become a close friend.
“Comfort makes me anxious… I chose restlessness,” he told Télérama.
Born on July 15, 1959 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Vincent Lindon is the son of an industrialist and nephew of the publisher of Éditions de Minuit Jérôme Lindon. He started out in the profession as an assistant costume designer for “Mon oncle d’Amérique” by Alain Resnais and then as stage manager for a show by Coluche.
After the Cours Florent, he played his first role in “Le Faucon” by Paul Boujenah, in 1983, but his first notable appearance was in “37°2 le matin” by Jean-Jacques Beineix, two years later.
– Social vein –
We then see him in “Quelques jours avec moi” by Claude Sautet, “Un homme amoureux” by Diane Kurys, with whom he will also shoot “La Baule-les-Pins”, or in “La crise” by Coline Serreau, who will also direct him in “Chaos”.
A romance with Caroline of Monaco propelled him to the front page of the celebrity press in the early 1990s. At that time, the “sidelines” of cinema seemed to attract him. He would be close to Claude Chirac, the daughter of President Jacques Chirac, for years.
Then it was “L’irrésolu” with Sandrine Kiberlain, whom he married and with whom he had a daughter, Suzanne, who became an actress and director (“Seize printemps”, in Cannes in 2020). The couple is now divorced.
Modest and secretive about his life, the actor, also the father of a son, will appear in Alain Berbérian’s “Paparazzi” as a wink. More recently, he delivered a caricature of an egotistical actor in Quentin Dupieux’s “The Second Act”.
In the 2000s, he starred in “Welcome” where he played a lifeguard who takes a young Kurdish refugee under his wing in Calais. The film was directed by Philippe Lioret, who directed him again in “Toutes nos envies”, on the issue of over-indebtedness, another societal issue to which he is sensitive.
“As my father used to say, if you don’t change anyone’s mind, if you don’t help anyone, your time on earth will have been of no interest,” the actor sums up.
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