What memories do you have of your childhood, in Beirut, in the Armenian community?
Essentially, those from before the war and those from the war. I lived there between the ages of 9 and 16. And I still have good memories of it.
What does your character represent, Marwan, who is the guide-driver for the director played by Laurent Lafitte?
He is a passer, someone who guides the stranger, welcomes him, welcomes him. It is the one who opens the doors of his country, his culture, his history to others.
We feel him both revolted and resigned by this war which is tearing Lebanon apart.
He is rather fatalistic but remains faithful to his ancestral humanist values. It belongs to the Druze people, keen to preserve their religious and philosophical integrity. Its roots are solid, especially in times of war which reveals men. It reflects the barbarity, the savagery of some and the humanism and benevolence of others. Yesterday as today, no one really understands anything about this very opaque war that I experienced and where alliances are made and undone at once, where yesterday’s enemy becomes today’s ally. ‘today.
For you, who started at the Théâtre du Soleil with Ariane Mnouchkine, what does this crazy idea of staging “Antigone” mean amid bombs in Beirut?
Antigone is courage incarnate. Someone who rejects injustice and the idea that a better world is impossible. I come from theater and I think that it has virtues that go back to Antiquity. It can enlighten minds, stem the human madness which consists of killing each other. It is one of the last bastions to avoid falling completely into madness. Art is a beacon in the night.
However, doesn’t Marwan have difficulty understanding the approach of this French director?
He doesn’t have to understand it. I think he is a little surprised but convinced of the sincerity of the project. The idea is crazy but it seems beautiful to bring together Palestinian, Druze and Christian artists around an artistic project.
-What does General De Gaulle represent that you play in the two-part biopic by Antonin Baudry which will be released this year? A historical fresco centered on the years 1940 to 1944, with Niels Schneider, Thierry Lhermitte and Karim Leklou.
I don’t have the right to talk to you about it now but I can tell you that his personality, his vision of the war, his writings, his resistance action impressed me a lot when I played this extraordinary character.
What did you feel when Missak Manoukian and his wife Mélinée entered the Pantheon on February 21, 2024?
I was proud, not because he is Armenian but because, all of a sudden, a man died, upright in his ideas and was recognized years later for having died for the causes that seemed noble to him. Afterwards, if he did it for political reasons, I don’t care. Armenians have the resistance virus.
* “The Fourth Wall”, in theaters January 15, 2025.
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