The actor, rather used to playing in comedies, is the hero of An Ordinary Man, a four-episode TV movie broadcast Tuesday evening and next Tuesday on M6.
Pierre Aknin, the scriptwriter and director of the fiction, explains Monday on Europe 1 how he chose his main actor.
INTERVIEW
Arnaud Ducret in Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès… This choice of an actor experienced in comic roles to play a father who has suppressed his wife and children, before disappearing, may have been surprising.
However, it will be a reality Tuesday night on M6, with the broadcast of the first two episodes of
An Ordinary Man
, a four-part TV movie largely inspired by the life of the protagonists of one of the most mysterious news items of recent decades.
And besides, choosing Arnaud Ducret was not obvious for Pierre Aknin, the scriptwriter and director of the fiction, guest of Culture Médias, on Europe 1, Monday.
>> Find Culture Médias in replay and podcast here
"A deep energy that told me 'but it's him'!"
"So in fact it was my daughter, who told me 'you should meet Ducret'", says Pierre Aknin.
"I said yes, well, maybe, and I agreed to meet him, indeed."
And very quickly, the skepticism of the director is swept away.
"When he walked into the restaurant it was physically… it's not that he looked like him, it's that there was a deep energy that said to me 'but it's him, there is doesn't even have to insist. And the meal did exactly what I thought.
>> PODCAST
- Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: listen to the story of the case by Christophe Hondelatte
And then, underlines Pierre Aknin, Arnaud Ducret threw himself headlong into it without his role.
"He did a wonderful job. He worked with a coach, we worked together. And then, he did not interpret. He embodied," said the director.
"He worked on everything on the interiority of the character, on the possibilities, because he's still a protean character and was a bit complex"