How was this project born on a crazy New Year's Eve party?
It wasn't about New Year's Eve at the beginning, we wanted to do something on a family nightclub, from the Province but a bit trendy all the same, the problems that a boss could encounter there. The idea of making it an choral drama, with lots of guests, came later, and TF1 suggested setting the action on New Year's Eve, which allows us to broadcast it during the holidays.
How did co-writing with Tom Villa go: together, or separately?
We had already written my one-man show with Tom, I like being with the person to work and discuss, in the same room. We can each do little tinkering on our own. I write a lot through the body, getting up and improvising, taking notes.
There are moments with one joke per line: is this a constraint that you imposed on yourself? Or did you let the guests improvise?
I left room in improvisation for the actors that I like, who have lots of talent and who I know will bring funny things. But it's very structured. To improvise well, the text must be concrete. We want a laugh every five seconds. With Tom, we want to give people food, so that they feel that we wanted to please them.
Which makes me think of the hilarious sequences with the cooks, notably Corinne Masiero and Laurent Mariotte…
We wrote the casting of the cooks like a sketch, with a very important rhythm to give to the editing. People's reaction is incredible, it immediately makes them laugh, they even applauded at the screening.
Where was Panique au 31 filmed?
Where did you shoot?
I'm going to tell you a secret recipe: we took drone images with a white Fiat 500 in Nice, in Cannes, by the sea, and we faked the nightclub, like we filmed in the 95.
How did you choose the guests, by affinity?
Yes, for example for Corinne Masiero, François-Xavier Demaison and Maxime Gasteuil said yes to me straight away. Corinne Masiero didn't even want to read. She told me “It’s you, there’s no problem”. She came and was extraordinary, knowing her text by heart and coming up with something. François-Xavier Demaison the same, it's a friend who said yes to me straight away and with whom the scenes are among my favorite moments. There are others that I had to convince and to whom I had to send the texts. Michelle Bernier liked the idea but there was something that didn't suit her, she proposed an idea that I found very good and which was integrated: for the lookalike competition, she suggested that it not be not real lookalikes. After the screening, all the actors were proud, that made me happy.
“Kaamelott is a very big influence” – Arnaud Ducret
You find Lionnel Astier who plays your father…
I love working with Lionnel, it's a real pleasure. He already played my father in Parents, instructions for use. We wrote the role with him in mind, imagined the lines as if he were saying them. When we shot it, it came out exactly like what we had in mind. He was super happy.
With him in the cast, and your role as leader surrounded by broken arms, we think a little about Kaamelott…
Totally. Kaamelott is a very big influence for Tom Villa, and there is in particular a scene with the bouncers, to whom I explain that we must not let the vehement and the fulminant people in, which they absolutely do not understand, where the We really said to ourselves that it had to sound like Kaamelott.
Your favorite scene?
I have a lot of them because I really like all the actors. But there is one with Pierre Arditi, the way he pronounces his line: “Being dumped by your mistress in front of your wife: the stab”which is incredible.
Panic at 31: is a sequel possible for the TF1 fiction?
Does this adventure make you want to find this character and the Passo Club? Or to make Panique au 31 an annual event, with a different location each time?
These are ideas that we have in mind, yes. The reactions make you want to find these characters again. We will see how the public receives this on December 30.
