“As a child, the scene terrified me”

If it were necessary to measure the iconic status achieved by an actor (or actress) and the number of people around him in a “promo” situation, he would be in pole position. On this October morning, the large suite of a five-star Parisian hotel reserved for is teeming with agents, press officers, stylists and makeup artists who vibrate in an electric atmosphere. Thanks to his roles as a gifted submariner in The Song of the Wolf (2019), a discolored Marseille cop in BAC North (2020) or endearing d’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (2023), the 34-year-old actor has become a sure value in French cinema worthy of all the attention. His pretty dark brown face makes him popular among teenage fans of his three films directed by Cédric Klapisch, which does not prevent him from excelling in schoolboy comedy with the series Fiasco for Netflix.

At ease in all registers and become super bankable, François Civil marks his twenty-year career starring in the film by Gilles Lellouche Love phew alongside Adèle Exarchopoulos, Élodie Bouchez and the cream of the French actors of the moment (Raphaël Quenard, Jean-Pascal Zadi, Karim Leklou…) enhanced by “godfathers” Alain Chabat and Benoît Poelvoorde. François Civil plays Clotaire, a dark character imbued with muted violence in this story of passionate love which spans two decades from the beginning of the 1980s. When asked about his work, his tastes, his models and his desires, he is particularly kind and generous in his responses. He only takes offense when we ask him if the romantic relationship in the film with Adèle Exarchopoulos spills over into real life, as the celebrity press claims, or influenced the filming: “ What is this question?! » At this moment, here is Adèle Exarchopoulos who happily passes a head. “ Hi ! Oh, are you working? Sorry. »

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When did Gilles Lellouche talk to you about the film?

It was at the film party BAC Northin Marseille, with Adèle Exarchopoulos and the whole team. We were all delighted with the first figures on the evening of the exit. Gilles told Adèle and me that he was writing a film about a great love story, that he had us in mind for the main characters. We had to wait a few months for him to finish the script, before we started working.

This passionate love story begins in the early 1980s, in a meticulous reconstruction of the era, in particular thanks to the music.

Gilles, who grew up during that period, was very happy to share his memories with us, he was attentive to all the details, the costumes, the props, the cars – which he could talk to you about for hours – and of course music. For my part, the Billy Idol song Eyes without a Facewhich appears on the soundtrack, immediately takes me back into the film. But all songs are important [A Forest, de Cure, y tient par exemple un rôle central]. I remember that in the script, Gilles had already indicated the titles in the margins of the text so that we could listen to them and immerse ourselves in the atmosphere he wanted.

L’Amour ouf, by Gilles Lellouche, with Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil, comes out on October 16. (Credits: LTD/Studiocanal)

In the first part of Love phewit’s Malik Frikah who plays the character of Clotaire, and you play him ten years later. What did you borrow from his playing to interpret your version of Clotaire?

I tried to match our pulses without mimicking them, to play the character in the same way. Even if there is a gap of ten years because of the prison which transforms Clotaire, we had to feel something breaking through from childhood, especially when he sees Jackie again, the love of his life. There are gestures like touching your shaved head, smoking or putting on a jacket, which we talked about. We had to have reference points, and the rest was quieter. Observing Malik has been very beneficial. There is something in the energy of the body, a somewhat dull inner rage. I was fascinated by his game, also because I would have loved to have had his part. I was especially impressed to see that at 17 years old Malik has a much higher level of concentration and play than I did when I was his age.

Your character is silent, but there are tasty punchlines from your partners Raphaël Quenard and Jean-Pascal Zadi. Do you consider that you form a small group, a sort of new guard of cinema?

I don’t think we can talk about a gang. I belonged to a gang when we were not yet well established in this environment at the time of the series Casting(s) [2013-2015] and of Five [2016]. There was really a gang thing there. There was a collective energy that made you want to eat everything. We have all flourished since then and it is a great source of pride: Pierre Niney of course, Igor Gotesman [le réalisateur de Five et de Fiasco] or Antoine Gouy [Lupin]Benjamin Lavernhe [Le goût des merveilles]Ali Marhyar [réalisateur de Comme un prince]. Today, friendships are intact. We always see each other on vacation or at dinner, but everyone follows their own path.

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Among other French actors, are there any that you particularly admire?

Without hesitation Karim Leklou [BAC Nord, Le Roman de Jim]who has exceptional artistic integrity and poetry that fascinate me. He has gentleness and violence at the same time in him. He approaches this profession with a cool head and a lot of respect, which gives rise to fascinating conversations that I always listen to attentively. There is also Juliette Binoche, one of my first shocks as an actor, or rather as an actress, opposite me in the film They [2012]. His accuracy of play, his flexibility, his involvement gave me a line to follow.

In the series Fiascoon Netflix, released in April, your character forgets his text
and it’s very funny. Do you have a particular memorization technique?

It depends on the text. If it’s a spoken style, I tend to learn it as little as possible. If everything makes sense, if it’s lively and the dialogues are intelligent, we absorb it very quickly. Sometimes, there are monologues, connections of intention, connections of thought that must be made in your head; so in this case, I divide the text into several parts, which I learn one by one. Generally, these parts require a bit of rewriting, especially the articulations, they have to be unique to us.

The dialogues of Three Musketeersthe film in which you play d’Artagnan, are in a unique language. Is it harder to memorize?

I believe that the authors, Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, drew from Dumas’ text for certain replies. Learning this kind of text is another exercise. You have to put it in your mouth. I have to believe in what I say, that I understand it, that it comes naturally. With d’Artagnan, I wanted it to be fluid, like with my character Chanteraide in The Song of the Wolf when he uses jargon very specific to submarines. It had to make sense, so I cut up the text while remaining open to various possible interpretations.

After your success in cinema, would you like to do theater?

It attracts me and at the same time it scares me. When I was a child, going on stage terrified me; I was throwing up, I was having horrible days before the curtain went up. Today, maybe things would go better. Since I started this job, I have only worked on set. We are very surrounded there, there are lots of people, but it is not an audience, it is allies. They’re in the secret, that’s what I like. We work together to obtain the best result. Whether it’s the stage manager, the boom operator or the director, we all have the same objective.

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Who are the directors you most enjoyed working with?

There are some that I get along extremely well with, but there might be things that disappointed me or that I would have thought would be different in the end result. But I won’t give names! Never ! We can only say that Cédric Klapisch, with whom I made three films, is at the top of the basket.

Now that you are overwhelmed with offers, would you like to work in an American production?

Being able to choose the projects and the people I want to work with is a real luxury, I am well aware of that. But I don’t particularly want a big American production, even if I would like to shoot in other languages, English, Spanish or Italian, to improve my skills. To choose, I would like to work with directors that I admire, like Paul Thomas Anderson [Magnolia, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood] or James Gray [Little Odessa, The Yards, Ad Astra].

In twenty years of career, has your approach to the profession changed a lot?

If I compare myself to Malik, I was definitely much more of a dilettante than him. I arrived late for my castings. I didn’t take things seriously. Over the course of my experiences, I became more and more passionate about this profession. Preparing a film completely absorbs me, to the point of becoming an obsession, a sort of abandonment in the service of the character. Right now, for example, I’m preparing Arnaud Desplechin’s film A casewhich we will start shooting at the end of the month. I play a concert pianist there. It takes up a lot of my mental space. I practice a lot on the piano. I can’t wait to start shooting.

You manage to adapt to all registers, from testosterone thrillers to swashbuckling films, including schoolboy comedy and sentimental dramas. Do you consider yourself a “deconstructed” man?

It’s a word that we use in every sauce. I don’t think I’m a mega-macho, in any case. But there is work of introspection to be done for all men today when we see the recent affairs which are shaking up France, without mentioning them. Even if all men are not responsible for these matters, each man is responsible for questioning himself, for his relationship with others, for his relationship with women. We live together, and there are worrying things that need to change. For the movieNo wavesFor example [sorti en mars 2024]I played a teacher wrongly accused of harassing one of his students. It upset me. By reading the script, I was able to put myself in the place of all the protagonists – the teacher, but also the young girl who felt hurt or her brother who threatens the teacher. The film gave everyone a voice. Above all, it showed the school system which may have failed to collect speech and process it. We need more listening.

Love phewby Gilles Lellouche, with Adèle Exarchopoulos, François Civil, Mallory Wanecque, Malik Frikah. 2:40 a.m. Released October 16.