- TMC broadcasts the documentary Tony Parker Confidential this Tuesday at 9:15 p.m.
- Alessandra Sublet took more than a year and a half to convince the basketball player to be followed behind the scenes.
- “I wanted this documentary to be accessible to everyone. Even if you don't necessarily like basketball or sport, "explains the journalist who wanted to highlight the values of success reflected in the athlete's career.
After football, basketball. A year after producing a documentary on Antoine Griezmann, Alessandra Sublet delivers this Tuesday, at 9:15 p.m. on TMC, an intimate portrait of Tony Parker. The host and journalist, who met the NBA legend for the first time in 2011, tells 20 Minutes how she convinced him to lend himself to the game of this Tony Parker Confidential who involved following him for several months, between France and the United States, between his professional and family circles.
🏀 "Today, #MichaelJordan refuses almost all press interviews, but when it comes to @tonyparker, he can make a small exception" @alsublet ⬇
Tony # TonyParkerConfidentiel tomorrow evening on #TMC. pic.twitter.com/Bs1QNCCYGV
Why did you choose to devote a documentary to Tony Parker?
What I like in the documentary, and in the exercise of the portrait, it is to put forward extraordinary destinies. There are public figures who have such an exceptional journey that it is important to show them to say that success is accessible to everyone from the moment you want and by dint of passion and work. These are essential values for me. These days, a program like this feels good, I think. We need positive values, to see that things can also be rosy from time to time.
Was Tony Parker easy to convince?
At first, he was not very convinced because he is rather humble. He said, "But come home, why? What do you want people to find out about? ” I wanted people to see that we can start from nothing and get to the top, for the young generations it is important. He started to gamber, we saw each other randomly for a year and a half. One day he ended up saying to me: "Look, in a year, I'm retiring, it's confidential but if you want we can start shooting the doc now". This must have contributed to his desire for transmission.
You appear in the documentary at several times, you accompany him in the places that matter to him and you interview him even in his swimming pool? Is it to facilitate confidences?
Yes, it is not to make me shrewd and show off. It actually helps the interlocutor to confide more easily. We did "posed" interviews with Tony who don't have the same flavor at all as when they were embodied. As I had tried to convince him, for months there was a confidence that had settled. Tony Parker is a very good speaker, he is used to interviews, but rather from a sports perspective. He is modest. So he could indulge in more intimate things, which are close to his heart, more than a journalist he had never met. And then, for viewers who do not know basketball, to have a girl who is a landmark for them, which allows them to say to themselves "she is like me, she will learn as much as I will learn", it is not bad. I wanted this documentary to be accessible to everyone. If you don't necessarily like basketball or sport, you can watch it without problem because it is the story of a mad desire to win and succeed.
You find yourself facing Michael Jordan to interview him. And you give the impression of being very comfortable with this living myth ...
(Laughs) It was not easy. Tony Parker is like a kid by his side. When we got to Michael Jordan, Tony didn't want to stay, so I was all alone (she laughs). Michael Jordan is a real star, with a lot of empathy, who immediately put you at ease. After five minutes, I felt like I was chatting with someone I already knew very well. Finally, I didn't do too badly.
Kobe Bryant also appears in this documentary. His interview takes on a particular dimension following his death in January ...
We did it in mid-December. Kobe Bryant was one of Tony's very close friends, it's complicated to do the documentary without having it. Kobe Bryant's words and encouragement take on a whole new value. Tony is having a hard time seeing this interview yet. He doesn't have enough perspective yet to see her without shedding a tear.
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