What was the first song you heard by Aznavour?
I don’t know because, for me, Charles belongs to everyone. It is the soundtrack of our childhood, of our adolescence. My parents listened to it, everyone listened to it, on the radio, in taxis, in the street. There is always an empty chair for him in case he comes to ring the bell. It always gave me the effect you get when you hear an open-air concert, to which you don’t necessarily have access, which you hear echoing and which goes through the walls.
Did you have a good image of him? The film does not only show its good sides…
Yes, I had a good image of him because I didn’t know his story. He was very nice, but in the film you don’t spare him and you shouldn’t. We are all human, all fallible. It’s important to give texture to the characters. You shouldn’t lie about the material and that’s what’s interesting. And then he had difficult times. If, suddenly, we present a character who is impeccable from A to Z, how can we identify? Nobody is perfect.
How did you do it?
To find the character, I was looking for the “dark side” that we find in biopics. When they are stars whose lives everyone knows, it imposes constraints on us in which we must find freedom. Some have gone through phases of drugs, deception or prison. There, there wasn’t that. We worked with psychologists, we dug deeper. They turn over stones, provide lighting which can be used directly in the film or which simply nourish the character without being visible. But we found a curse. Aznavour is someone who will never be happy. When you want to achieve your goals at all costs, sometimes you miss the important thing, your family, your children. It creates a crack, like the death of his son. And he locks himself in what I call his survival buoy which was, for him, writing.
Was the hardest part learning to sing, music or dance?
Maybe singing: six months, eight hours a week. Singing and dancing, in addition to being an actor, brings technical constraints from which you must free yourself in order to perform. In addition, Charles Aznavour, everyone knew his voice, so unique. I was lucky to have a range, a timbre, a hoarse veil… It had to work: there was “Elvis” which was coming out at the cinema at that time and the actor had done an astonishing job. However, the voice is what came the fastest.
Are you going to become a singer?
No (laughs). When I work, I send out all my energy. In the song “Comme they say”, I only learned the excerpt that I was singing. I didn’t have time to scatter. I’m a reservoir, and when I finish a role, I siphon the reservoir to move on to the next character.
In the character of Charles Aznavour, did you discover any points in common with you?
Along the way, I discovered that we were children of emigrants, from the same social background, with the common desire to explore different languages, combativeness, even if his is Olympian (laughs). But, at the beginning, I had a lot of doubts: I didn’t look like him, I didn’t have the same height, not the same voice, not the same build. I asked Jean-Rachid Kallouche, the son-in-law and producer of the film, whom I knew, for his opinion. He told me that he himself had reservations, and Katia, his wife, the singer’s daughter, too. That reassured me. I was afraid that it would be a bad idea, that we would commit to something body and soul without thinking and that, in the end, it wouldn’t work. I said yes and the fears were swept away by the challenge!
What did the family think?
Katia, the daughter he had with his third wife, Ulla, came to see us on set and said “I feel like I’m seeing my father”. When we try such crazy and risky things and she says that, she confirms the direction we have decided to take. It gives you wings. Without that, without that validation, I would have had a bitter taste in my heart.
Was the physical metamorphosis complicated?
These are makeup hours. We get up earlier than everyone else, we wear a prosthesis on our face which requires training, to be able to speak subtly or grandiloquently, depending on the moment. You have to find the balance in order to be completely credible.
You said you took the time to settle into his pumps. When do we tell ourselves that we are there?
I never tell myself that we are there. Until the last minute. Moreover, we re-recorded songs in the studio which, at first, were not sufficiently comfortable for the viewer’s ear, months after filming.
Which Charles Aznavour song is your favorite?
One particularly touches me, even though I have discovered dozens and he wrote a thousand, it is “Le Feltre taupé”. It was swing but also a bit of the ancestor of rap!
You have lost a lot of weight: are you doing well? Are you preparing for a new role? We talk about Julia Ducournau…
(Laughing) I’m doing very well, thank you. I lost a lot of weight for Aznavour, I gained weight again and, now, I have to lose a lot of it again. But I have no right to talk about it!
“Monsieur Aznavour”, by Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir, also with Bastien Bouillon, Marie-Julie Baup. Released October 23, 2024.
Related News :