After 20 years of absence, the bigdil made his big return to television. Thursday January 2, 2025, many viewers followed the first episode of the legendary game on RMC Story. For his first evening, Vincent Lagaf’ brought together 1.8 million nostalgic fans, which represents 9.1% of the public. A nice score which suggests a great continuation for the show. While the bigdil already enjoying great success, the program might never have come back. Indeed, the flagship host of the 2000s had imposed a condition: the Bill from the beginning had to also come back. But who is behind this blue alien costume?
Everyone knows Bill, few know Gilles Vautierhis interpreter. He is 62 years old, comes from Grenoble, works as an independent photographer and has known Vincent Lagaf’ for almost 40 years now! From our colleagues at the magazine TV 2 Weekson newsstands last December, the host who agreed to be paid much less than at the time of TF1 recounts their meeting: “It dates back to 1986. Gilles was a pianist-comedian in a Parisian cabaret. I was in the room and he recognized me. I was already a little known, I was doing The Class at the time. We slept around all evening. It was war for two hours, a real ping-pong! It made the audience laugh. Very quickly, we said to ourselves that we had to do something together.“And that’s how this incredible duo was born.
Return of Bigdil: Without Bill, Vincent Lagaf’ would not have returned!
Since then, Vincent Lagaf’ and Gilles Vautier have never left each other. So much so that their complicity in the bigdil made an impression. This was also one of the conditions for the host to agree to come back. “Without him, I wouldn’t do ithe admits to TV 2 Weeks. Gilles was the first person I called. He wanted to talk first. I answered him: ‘No, you don’t argue, it’s yes or it’s no. Because if you don’t come back, I’m not going back.’“The faithful of the show thus had the pleasure of finding the extraterrestrial that they loved so much. And few imagine the behind the scenes of Bill’s return. Nobody sees him but Gilles Vautier wears a suit equipped with sensors as well as a headset connected to a smartphone for facial recognition, all analyzing the actor’s expressions and movements in real time. A character almost larger than life!
