“The waste of gifts is over!”

It's the great return of Vincent Lagaf' a you «Bigdil» ! More than twenty years after its termination on TF1, the famous game is enjoying a second life on RMC Story. From this Thursday, January 2 at 9:10 p.m., the 65-year-old host will be at the helm of the show which made the headlines. In mid-November, it was with a broad smile and boundless energy that he shot thirty new numbers at La Cité de Cinéma (in Saint-Denis).

TV MAGAZINE. – What did you feel when you set foot on the set of “Bigdil”?
Vincent LAGAF'. – I had the shivers. As a good old pretentious adventurer, I was firmly convinced that it was going to happen like that. And yet, I cried my race. I don't know if there are many guys in my situation who had the opportunity and the courage to go back. I remind you that there is no such thing as staying 14 years on TF1 prime time!

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Did you find your feet straight away?
Yes, completely. It's incredible to see that 20 years later, the automation is still there. When we have loved something very deeply and when we have been at the heart of the development of a show, we inhabit it, we live it. “Le Bigdil” has always been a family. Many people who worked on other sets after working on “Le Bigdil” tell me that they never found what I brought with them elsewhere. You should know that on the set of “Bigdil”, apart from the video team, no one came from TV, all the others came from the show. We can't do this show if we're not a team. It's impossible. And that's why I always say: “We had a success, I messed up”.

Why did you wait so long before resuming “Le Bigdil”?
We had to find a producer. I was offered it four times and I refused four times because I didn't want to do a sub-'Bigdil'. It would have been very difficult for me to hear in the street: “It was better before”. So, I wanted to be convinced that I had a guy who was sufficiently crazy in his head, capable of doing it. Antoine Henriquet called me and said: “Vincent, I have the rights, do you want to cover “Le Bigdil”? ». My only response was: “Do you have the means?” And he said to me: “We will give ourselves the means”. And there I said: « Bank, on and go! ».

Are you satisfied with the result?
I realized that he really put in the effort. I find “Le Bigdil” as I loved it, as I created it, as the entire initial team took the trouble to make it. This is exactly what I wanted. Honestly, I couldn't dream of anything better and I don't know if I'll do anything else afterwards. As Hervé Hubert, the first producer of “Bigdil” said: “We are not immune to success”a phrase that I love. If we manage to make a nice hit with this thing, I think I'll stop.

“Physically, I have the potato, I have the peach but I have 41 pieces of scrap metal in my body and half a lung missing”

Vincent Lagaf'

You have a reputation for being demanding. What did you demand for your return?
The sine qua non condition for me to return to this format that I love more than anything is that I absolutely wanted the same decor. I had warned that I would not change my decor: “If you can’t do the same decor, move on”. I also wanted Gilles Vautier to play Bill. I wanted the same team on set, guys who know the show inside out, who know where I'm going to end up, where I'm going to leave. I wanted the Gafettes, not four green plants, not four pretty girls.

Who are the two Gafettes accompanying you?
There is Nadia, who directs music videos, short films and documentaries. And then Fanny, who was Gafette at “Just Price”. She went to Ibiza to open a real yoga school. They are not just beautiful, they have something. I wanted them to be equipped with microphones because they have repartee. Together, we mess around, we laugh.

Wouldn't you have preferred that “Le Bigdil” come back as a daily?
I'm no longer old enough. I am in a state, I insist on this a lot, lamentable. Physically, I have the potato, I have the peach but I have 41 pieces of scrap metal in my body and half a lung missing. So, going back to 240 daily shows, never! For the moment, I am not capable of it. So, let's explore prime time life down to the smallest corners, we'll see later. If the chain has the opportunity to buy me a heart-lung kit, I'll take it. But for now, I'm limiting myself to one prime time per week.

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Vincent Lagaf', behind the clown

What changes with this new version of “Bigdil”?
It's a bit longer, there's one more game so I have more time to have fun. But above all, there is also another thing which is terribly important and that is that no one bothers me with the audiences. I don't have a clause in my contract about the hearings we have to do. At the time, at TF1, if I was below 6 million viewers, I got a slap on the wrist.

The world has changed and today there are things you can no longer afford…
I am a pit bull that you let go and what happens will happen. There was a time when we could do things, now we can't. So I have to learn to deal with it. Still, I think people want someone who isn't politically correct and is just a mad dog. The first show we filmed was 100% Lagaf'. Antoine Henriquet came to see me and told me that he was going to have to cut things quite a bit. When I do the Portuguese accent, I'm not making fun of the Portuguese, that's what I've been doing for 40 years. Today, if you use an Arab accent, you are racist, but not if you use a Quebec accent, that is terribly racist. I stopped watching TV but I haven't changed. So I force myself to change because I don't want to hear guys in need of recognition shitting on me.

At TF1, you had total freedom. Is this still the case with RMC Story?
We don't really have the same means. At the time, there were six channels and 35 or 38 million viewers. Today, we have 28 channels and there aren't many more viewers, so the pieces of the pie are much smaller. It's true that I sometimes left the set of 107, called Fred, my artistic director, from my car and told him that on Monday, I wanted two 40 m cranes. I arrived on Monday, there were two 40 m cranes. We allowed ourselves things at a time when we could afford things.

The “Bigdil” earnings have changed drastically…
Today, making someone win 1,500 bucks feels like putting the sun back into their life. 20 years ago, winning 1500 balls was common. We could win 5, 6, 7 cars per day. Today, that is no longer the goal. The waste of gifts is over. I see people who hesitate a lot more for 1200, 1300 balls. Before, they replayed a ten-day cruise at 4,000 balls.

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Vincent Lagaf': “I have never cried as much as when I remembered all these memories”

What do you think of these channels which rerun old shows?
There are 28 channels. We are not bad but we are not capable of creating 28 new programs with 28 new presenters. It's just not possible. So at some point, you have to go back to what worked. Why deprive yourself of resuming a show that worked? There are films that we rewatch, songs that we sing again, plays that we reenact, books that we reread. Why not do a “Bigdil” again, especially if the public wants it?

Why had “Le Bigdil” stopped?
I was a temperamental little jerk. I told Patrick Le Lay [directeur général de TF1, NDLR] that I wanted to take a year off to reinvigorate myself, his response was: “When we take the check that you take, you stop when I tell you to stop”. I told him: “Listen carefully, I’ll stop!”. I shouldn't have told him that (laughs). I don't regret it because thanks to that, I remained what I am: I say what I think and I do what I say. In addition, it allowed me to meet Philippe Lellouche, to act in a play, to write a book that I had wanted to write for a very long time, to open this extreme aquatic sports school. I did lots of things that completely blew me away and that I would never have been able to do if I had continued at the pace I was working at.