INTERVIEW
A life-changing tragedy. On September 11, 2001, François-Xavier Demaison was on an internship in New York, when he attended the World Trade Center attacks from a Manhattan office. He was to become a tax lawyer, he will become an actor. Today, he believes at the microphone of Europe 1 that this event was an accelerator, but that he would have changed lanes anyway.
"I think there would have been another click. I had that in me, and it had to come out," says the actor. "We all have September 11 in our lives: we lose a loved one, we get kicked out of our job, a separation ... It's a questioning that has been accelerated." At the end of 2002, after having resigned, he staged his first show, Second Act . Samuel Le Bihan spots it and everything goes on. Since then, the two actors have been friends.
"I never get tired of what I do"
The conversion has been successful since François-Xavier Demaison is today both an actor and a co-director of a theater or festival sponsor. "I am happy because I exercise my profession in different forms. I direct the theater of the Work with Benoît Lavigne, I do a little production too, I am even the sponsor of a festival that we have just created near Perpignan: Pel-Licula, a festival of cinema, books and gastronomy. Watching a film with a good glass of wine, what more? "he laughs.
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"I'm lucky to be able to tell stories with completely different voices and media," says François Xavier-Demaison, who was also nominated for the César Award for Best Actor in 2009. "So I never get tired of this that I do, and I'm the happiest man in the world, at least professionally. "