It was one of the most anticipated series of the fall. On October 18, “Cult” arrived on the Prime Video platform. Created by Matthieu Rumani and Nicolas Slomka and co-produced by Alexia Laroche-Joubert, who we see on screen as Anaïde Rozam, the 6-episode mini-series looks back on the arrival in France of a new genre, reality TV, via the show that shook up the media landscape: “Loft Story”. The fiction begins when the idea of adapting “Big Brother”, the first program of its kind in the Netherlands, emerges in the heads of young French producers.
A Loana larger than life
We follow all their adventures to convince a channel, in this case M6, to broadcast the show, but also the step by step creation of this crazy project, in just a few months. Creation of studios, castings, search for an animator… All under the leadership of Isabelle de Rochechouart (a character inspired by Alexia Laroche-Joubert), who was appointed project manager of the program and on whom everything rests . From the second episode, viewers meet the candidate who made the history of reality TV in France by becoming the first winner of “Loft Story”: Loana, played on screen by actress Marie Colomb , with whom the resemblance is striking.
But what did the main person think of the series and more particularly of the character who is supposed to represent her? Silent since the announcement of the project, Loana spoke in the columns of “Voici”. She explained that she had not seen the 6 episodes of “Cult”, but only a few extracts, which were enough to trigger great emotions in her. “It feels weird to me. To see someone who looks like you, with your life… I’m not going to say that I’m a fan. I cried the first time I saw this. I see myself again, I have images in my head of what I experienced“, she said.
READ ALSO: “We couldn’t do anything…”: Alexia Laroche-Joubert looks back on the scandal that shook Loana and the production of “Loft Story” during the broadcast of the reality TV on M6
“You have the same face, you do the same stupid things that you would like to erase”
Fight
Loana was not consulted for the writing of the script or the design of the series. On the other hand, she sold the rights to her books (“She called me… miette”, autobiography released in 2001 and “So hard is the night, so tender is life”, autobiography released in 2018), after having “a little hesitant“. “Afterwards, I told myself that we shouldn’t leave this in a cupboard“, she decided. Does the series really resemble what she experienced 23 years ago now? “It’s too faithful (laughs). You have the same face, you do the same stupid things that you would like to erase. When I was in the pool, I didn’t expect Alexia to be on a scooter. I can now see the back, the people with the cameras. At the time I was so not concerned about all that but there was a machine! I didn’t know it was like that.” she told our colleagues.
Regarding the actress who was chosen to play her, Loana doesn’t beat around the bush: “I hate her but I think she represents me well, it’s difficult. She looks a lot like me, it’s really true. It’s my double!“, said the one who participated in “Angels of Reality TV” (NRJ 12) in 2017 and in “La Villa des Coeurs Broches” (TFX) in 2018. Loana also confided that she would like “meet well“Marie Colomb, her fictional “double”.
