From sacred monster of French cinema to fallen personality, Gérard Depardieu is in all the media this Monday, October 28, 2024 due to the first day of his trial at the Paris court to be tried for sexual assault on two women during a filming in 2021. Legal action, however, has certainly been postponed due to the absence of the actor for health reasons which has just been announced.
The day before, BFMTV decided to program its investigation into the living icon of the seventh art who fell from his pedestal. In this new issue of Infrarouge, journalists from the 24-hour news channel focus in particular on the case of one of the rare French actresses not to have defended the 75-year-old actor, Sophie Marceau.
“Some shoots are difficult”dared to say the young Sophie Marceau, barely an adult, while she was interviewed on French television on TF1 in 1985 for the release of Maurice Pialat's film with Gérard Depardieu, Police. She does not hide the brutal behavior of the two men and will tell the media: “Maurice, let things be clear between us. Angers, unhealthy relationships, all the perverse sado-masochistic stuff, it's not my thing.“
Words that will not please them and they will not spare him in other interviews with the press. On Europe 1, Maurice Pialat doesn't beat around the bush: “She's Marceau's little bitch, well when I say small, she's rather big. (…) Well, if I really deserved my reputation, I would have smacked him in the face with my hand.” The director of Under Satan's sun then just started the reputation of being a pain in the ass to the star of The Booma label that will stick to his skin for a long time…
Sophie Marceau, from annoying to whistleblower against Gérard Depardieu?
In 2023, in a long investigation by the newspaper The World regarding Gérard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau's experience was collected, almost forty years after the events: “He never dared to touch me in front of the team, otherwise he would have been punched in the face. But with the poor dressers…“However, she also suffered, like these slaps written in the script that she really receives:”After having suffered multiple slaps, unable to take it any longer, the actress burst into tears.” It therefore took four decades for the actress's words to be heard differently after a change in mentalities and the #MeToo movement.
Gérard Depardieu remains presumed innocent of the facts with which he is accused until the case is closed by the courts.
