Masterclass of JEAN DUJARDIN

Le Festival du Film Francophone d’angoulême, which was held from 25 to 30 August, was the opportunity to attend the first Masterclass of the actor Jean Dujardin, who presented in Avant – première the latest film by Claude Lelouch, A + A, in which he plays the lead role alongside Elsa Zylberstein.

He said that this first Masterclass the fun and the pleasure of play motivates clearly the actor, who appeared sincere, and endearing, with their feet on the ground. We had right, for a time, to a show of his hand, and a few imitations impayables of the voice of Bertrand Blier, François Damiens, and Francis Huster, but also of his character Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath in OSS117 , of which he has reminded us of the attitude, gait and facial expressions, including eyebrows !

The films and TV series that have inspired in his childhood : Happy Days, Benny Hill, and the movies Sunday evening on television with Jean-Paul Belmondo or Lino Ventura. But also the films of Pagnol, I was fascinated by the play of the actors and the fun they had the air of taking over. this is how I see the movie, when an actor is having fun and is radiant!

Its fun to mimic and play characters : I was the last of a family of 4 boys and is very inhibited, it wasn’t Zola, but make improvisations to 16 years of age I was a hell of a lot of confidence, I felt much stronger with my characters, I felt myself exist. I imitated my parents ‘ friends, and I wrote my first sketches for my military service, the sacred source of inspiration! Brice de Nice, it started like this, I have always advanced hidden with my characters… now, I take off the mask more and more !

Her training and her first experiences : at school I was useless and slow. To be admitted to bac has freed me! So no question of going at the Cours Florent, I would have had the impression to go back to school! You can’t teach me the pleasure of playing. Play in A guy, a girl has been a super learning, this series thanks to his plans sequences has allowed me to build muscle, to be comfortable. We marrait, we had no idea of the success the first two years.

The transition to the cinema: my career path has been a little strange, but I went month-by-month, without a plan. It is necessary, that in France one has to remove the labels, there are too many chapels, an actor must be able to pass from the tv to the cinema and theatre. It is as if there were only two boxes: either you laugh or you cry! In the USA, you start with the Stand Up anyway, and you connect on the cinema!

Patrick Sébastien, the discoverer and Isabelle Nanty the good fairy: I was discovered by Patrick Sébastien with us C to us, it has made the job of the castings. About Isabelle Nanty, she has a great eye just and gentle for full of actors; I had noticed it on M6 when I was doing the Seeds of Stars and I traded with her my first kiss in a cinema in a car in the movie All the girls are crazy of Pascale Pouzadoux .

The fatherly advice of André Wilms and Gérard Jugnot: Welcome to the Roze, I was on the le side, I have the syndrome of the impostor, I was afraid every day, as soon as I heard the Engine and at the time of my replicas. André Wilms came to me and told me the phrase that has healed me, “John, forgive!”. This is true at the bottom, afraid of what? Of the judgment? At worst, we don’t, we bar! I am 43 years old, I am not the center of the Earth, not everyone wants me not of evil! And I don’t forget Gérard Jugnot, who I toured with It does not must swear to nothing, who told me “most of all, make yourself scarce!”

Play in a comedy: the comedy, it is a question of rhythm, like the music; it is the time before the valve, and one just after, not the valve itself! For example, Michel Hazanavicius for the OSS117 has perfectly the science of the valves, even racist. The character of Hubert de la Bath is funny because he is more dumb than evil: it is enough to see it turn on and off the light to make cackling hens!

The directors who gave her roles tormented : Nicole Garcia (A balcony on the sea) who told me to have chosen me because she had seen my shadow…in Brice of Nice! Bertrand Blier (The sound of ice cubes) is an inventor, with some poetry, it is modern, but few producers have helped us for the movie… we don’t like too many of our senior citizens in France, and yet it was the place to make films like this; then we accompany them, we lower our prices!

The roles that he does not return to his home after the shooting: I’m not at all in the method of the Actor’s Studio! Apart from Hubert of the Bath to which I’ve been wanting to stay in the character, je and let the characters in my dressing room, I did not return home, it inflates all the world, I like to join my life and make the races! In Counter-Investigation of Franck Mancuso, I made myself suffer, I had dirty thoughts, but this is what the film, in some states, not to live with 24h/24! If I’ve worked and sweated, I’m happy, but I’m glad I can also stop it as it stops, I have no nostalgia, there is always another film after.

Relations with the press: the actors are already very critical of themselves, and if the press we save, we the actors, this is not the case for the filmmakers; for Brice de Nice, I’m fucked! It has become ashamed to say we loved the movie, like Dirty Dancing! So in the beginning it was a short story candide, it was not intended that the “I tai broken’” became such a phenomenon around the character, and suddenly the press took it as if I had said “I am called Jean Dujardin and I’m bored!” For OSS 117, the press has been very good!

My biggest feet in the film are The Artist, OSS 117, and A +A !

The Artist, the Oscar and the United States : the Oscar, I never hoped, it is miraculous! It changes the other, not me, I have not taken the big head, I’m not fooled! This is not a posture, it’s true! I fell over, I took it! I never wanted to make a career in the United States, I have a level of English of 4th! If there is a beautiful thing, why not, but I have just as much fun to make Nespresso with George Clooney as the Monuments Men ! And then the last of the French, who have drilled down there, it’s Maurice Chevalier and Gérard Depardieu! The French actresses there are better, they are more of the door-flags, like Marion Cotillard or Juliette Binoche.

A + A and Claude Lelouch: Claude Lelouch releases the actors, he grabs also their silences; it is modern, alert, he dares, he has courage and daring, and it encourages us to be bold! With my partners, I felt we were doing something!

His gaze on his other films : with 99 Francs, anyway, I lived with the head of Beigbeder for a few weeks, it took a lot of energy, and Jan Kounen is very demanding! With Ca$h, I don’t know what I was looking for at this time; Lucky Luke was finally a character very boring, beige as they say in Quebec: it was a beautiful film, but not a good movie. For The love kits!, we screwed up but I love the movie! As to the films in costume, as It is not necessary to swear to anything, I bothers me a little, I am not good and I don’t know why I played it like that.

The theatre: Two on the seesaw, directed by Bernard Murat (that is when even the French voice of Fonzy in Happy Days, or Woody Allen!) was a piece hard, with a character who has done me wrong, but who taught me a lot; I was used to play in the film by Nicole Garcia. We played it 200 times, for 6 months, it was a pleasure but applause will feed me not: it’s the stuff of old cancres, as the writer Daniel Pennac in Sorrow at the school, it is never satisfied, you always want to do better! It is very astonishing to see the great actors in the theatre, such as Jean-Pierre Marielle, who has such a mastery of time and the verb! The theatre is like a gym: it is trolling to go there, we are happy in the effort but we are happy to get out! I’ll go again maybe in 5 years, with something lighter, more déconnant. Which is still well in the cinema, it is that each one polishes the ball that is in the movie with his art (director, actors, technicians…) and I love this object ended.

I’m not hiding behind my characters, I take off the mask and I am free!

What motivates him and his desires today : my job is to try to do everything, there is no “anti-job; I try, I don’t listen to anyone, at the worst, if I plant, this is not serious!!! The cinema is there to try stuff. I’m progressing, I try not to fall back into what I’ve already done, my tics or my bad habits. I’m not all the time doing the zouave in my life, I am sometimes tormented, distressed, annoying, and so in the cinema, I want today to open up things to more personal, to be selfish in my enjoyment of an actor. For The French, I really had the impression of making a film of Mr, such as Lino Ventura, and I want more of that, I guard my child’s head. My luxury today, it is the freedom to say no… it is full of nons for the then become real then ! It happens with beautiful things, I have not taken the big head, I haven’t been high like that. And then with my brother, I get projects in production (NB: Marc Dujardin is the co-producer of the film, Lelouch)

ALSO READ: the review of the film, by Sylvie Noelle, below

A +A, Claude Lelouch