Jean-Pierre Foucault, hero of the fictional Murder on the Blue Coast on France 3

We didn’t necessarily expect it in a fiction, what’s more on France 3. This Saturday evening, Jean-Pierre Foucault tries his hand at comedy in the TV movie Murder on the Blue Coast. He plays an architect in love with a retired woman played by Alexandra Vandernoot. A first for this live man who has nearly 50 years of career on the small screen and has presented cult entertainment shows like “Sacred Evening” or “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”. The one who will host the Miss France election on December 14 at Futuroscope for the 30th consecutive year talks about this unique experience.

TV MAGAZINE – How did you get involved in this new adventure?
Jean-Pierre FOUCAULT – Very simply. About thirty years ago, I hired a young man at RMC, when I was its boss, whose name is Christophe Koszarek. He was an assistant on one of my shows and became a well-known television producer. He is friends with my daughter. One day he invited me to lunch in Paris and said: “What if we made a fiction together? » and, I don’t know why, I said yes (laughs). Even if I sometimes wondered why I accepted, especially when I had to learn the texts, it was ultimately a pretty extraordinary experience and I thank him for it.

Why did you like this adventure?
This is the first time, in my 50-year career, that I have not played the role of Jean-Pierre Foucault. I hope that the viewer will manage to forget the host to see Marc Valenci, my character. It’s a very new discipline for me.

What role do you play in this fiction?
I am a heritage architect. I have a meeting with a man who is found dead. And I’m madly in love with the mother of the girl who follows the investigation. I also have a son who has problems. Life is not very simple for my character but he copes with it quite well.

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What surprised you about this new job?
On television, when I present Miss France, for example, I know that I start at 9 p.m. and that, three and a half hours later, I have finished. But on set, it sometimes took us a day to shoot a minute. We do shots and reverse shots… It’s meticulous work that you can’t imagine when you watch television.

Did you have any say in the script?
No nothing at all. I am very wise and very responsible. I let those who know do it because it is not my job or my discipline. At first I just told them I was having trouble learning. Fortunately, when you put yourself in the skin of the character, it comes quite logically. Sometimes my wife would say to me: “I didn’t understand last night, you were talking to yourself…”. I repeated!

What was the most complicated thing for you on this shoot?
Learning the texts was undoubtedly the most difficult and it bothered me. But I still had a certain freedom for the dialogues which I used but which I did not abuse.

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How did you manage to get into the role?
I had a coach called Alexandre Thibault and who is the son of Jean-Pierre Thibaut. He made me repeat it. He also advised me to watch the film My Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet. It tells the story of a father who suffers from seeing his son fall into drugs. It really helped me understand my character.

How were your sessions organized?
The day before each day of filming, he came to my house to teach me the scenes and give me some advice on tone and breathing. He was of great help. It was a long-term job and I didn’t think it would be so complicated for me.

Did you know Alexandra Vandernoot?
She had participated in “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” only once but I didn’t know her. She is very nice, we get along very well.

In fiction, you embrace it, how did that scene happen?
For once, it wasn’t the director who asked that we reshoot the scene but me because I wasn’t satisfied with the previous ones (laughs). Alexandra was great with me like all fictional actors because they put me at ease. It wasn’t easy, I was a bit of an outsider in the series…

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Was it a dream for you to do comedy?
Absolutely not. For me, the dream was television even though I admire and appreciate actors. My job is life, live. I’ve never done anything else. I played in three or four films like in “My Best Friend” by Patrice Leconte but I played my role each time. This is the first time, at my canonical age, that I have practiced a new profession.

How did you react when you saw yourself on screen?
When I see myself on television, I always look at myself sideways. I don’t want to confront myself head-on and when I received the TV film, I did the same to try to protect myself a little bit. We’ll see. I can’t say that I felt good, because that’s not true. I still see Jean-Pierre Foucault but my friends who saw it told me it was good. The sanction will fall on Saturday: we will see if Marc Valenci was good or if Jean-Pierre Foucault was rubbish.

What do you remember from this adventure?
Doing new experiences is always very enriching and this was the case. And then, it allowed me to occupy my mind because, when you work less, you don’t have to stop suddenly like some of my friends who wait for noon then 6 p.m. for the pastis! I like working, traveling, doing lots of things.

“I asked TF1 for authorization”

Jean-Pierre Foucault

Have you had any other offers?
They will fall in spades (laughs). No, because it’s not released yet and I didn’t make it for that. I did it because Christophe asked me, because TF1 had authorized me to do it and because for me it was a new experience and it’s not unpleasant to try new things in your professional life.

Did you ask TF1 for permission to film on France 3?
Yes because it has been my home since 1987 and I am very loyal to it. If they had told me no, I wouldn’t have done it. With great elegance they accepted.

With whom will you present Miss France this year?
I don’t know, because we haven’t gotten together yet. For my 30th birthday as Miss France, the Misses are going to party, that will be the theme of the show. And I too will have a party to celebrate this birthday. I remember my first election in 1994 in Lille. Everyone thought Miss France was corny and wondered if it was going to work. Thirty years later, we are still here. It’s the only live entertainment show that generates so many viewers. I’m really very proud and very happy with it.

Are you going to be on stage in a different way, as you have been able to do in recent years?
My arrival will be a little special but I can’t say more.