Cult in laughter, eternally associated with the character of Jean-Claude Dusse and, yet, much more than a comic actor. Michel Blanc, mustache and bald head, obviously didn’t just play unlucky guys with women, a little heavy around the edges, making people laugh without their knowledge. Quite early on when his career was finally taking off thanks to the “Bronzés”, Michel Blanc got rid of this costume which risked sticking to him a little too much. “Jean-Claude Dusse was clearly for me, not for Thierry Lhermitte (the playboy in “Les Bronzés”, editor’s note). I quickly became afraid that I would be associated with it all my life,” he explained. He then took a 180 degree turn. And without slipping…
In 1984, 6 years after the first “Bronzés”, Michel Blanc tried his luck in the field of directing with “Marche à l’ombre”, opposite Gérard Lanvin. A successful debut behind the camera, in a tone of societal humor. But the transformation in the popular image that he had sent until then would come in a film by Bertrand Blier, “Evening Outfit”.
Interpretation prize in Cannes
With Blier, we move completely away from the world of the brilliant café-theatre of the Splendid. Facing Miou-Miou and Gérard Depardieu, Michel Blanc successfully entered the comedy-drama genre. In the role of a married man discovering the pleasures of homosexuality, the actor shines on a transgressive, darker register and this does not escape the profession. Like rarely actors before (and even after him), he was quickly praised and won the Best Actor Prize at Cannes for this same “Evening Wear”.
His career in drama was launched and the roles followed one another: from the perverted “Monsieur Hire” (on which he found director Patrice Leconte of “Bronzés”) where he played a dangerous game with Sandrine Bonnaire to “Merci la vie” in which he faces Jean Carmet, Michel Blanc takes the camera again, often for the better. In “Gross Fatigue”, he paints a caustic portrait of celebrity which again earned him distinction at the Cannes Film Festival (with the Best Screenplay Prize), while in the choral comedy in “Kiss Who You Will” he directs Jacques Dutronc, Charlotte Rampling and Carole Bouquet. These 2000s, moreover, revealed another audience, not necessarily keen on French productions from the 80s and 90s. The rural and societal comedy “I find you very handsome”, by Isabelle Mergault, was a box office success. office and, a few years later, it was for a political thriller (in which we also find the Belgian Olivier Gourmet), “The Exercise of the State” (in 2011) that Michel Blanc received his first César as a actor (in a supporting role). Few actors, popularized by their comedic repertoire, have succeeded in this big gap in the long term.
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