Weight loss, obtaining a driving license ... to take on the role of Mikael in one of the darkest films of his career, the actor Vincent Macaigne submitted to intense preparation.
Invited Wednesday from Europe Noon, he evokes a work "in homage to New Hollywood of the 1970s".
INTERVIEW
He starred in
Elie Wajeman's
Night Doctor
, both a social thriller and a medical road movie, on screens from Wednesday. Vincent Macaigne plays Mikael, a practitioner who treats the forgotten, people isolated in their apartments and drug addicts to whom he prescribes opioids. But he finds himself drawn by his pharmacist cousin, played by Pio Marmaï, in drug and prescription trafficking.
"It's a film I'm very proud of, because it's a film that grabs the audience. I want to say it's a thriller. It's a film about Paris, about loneliness. And at the same time, it is a night film which will see the light of day, which goes towards empathy ", explained Vincent Macaigne, Wednesday at the microphone of Patrick Cohen in
Europe Midi
.
"It's a film that is a kind of homage to New Hollywood films of the 1970s," he summarizes.
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Orders of convenience
His character, whom we follow throughout the night, has decided to take control of his life, to solve all his problems during these few hours.
"He does everything to get out of the knots in which he is plunged, from the reports of violence with his cousin, with traffickers. He does everything to go to the group, to the doctors of the world, to his wife, to his children" , details Vincent Macaigne.
The scenario is based on a phenomenon documented by the judicial chronicle: doctors who agreed to make prescriptions of convenience, of Subutex in particular, sometimes to help drug addicts, before gradually slipping into a form of deal. .
The director Elie Wajeman himself went to the trials of some of these practitioners to feed his writing.
A major role in a career
"It's a real gift that Elie Wajeman gave me. It's been a long time since I wanted to do other kinds of character," continues the actor, who had to lose 25kg in three months to get into this role !
"I had to work every day, but it put me in the character, in the brutality of the film," says Vincent Macaigne, who also had to pass his driver's license for this film.
Night doctor
had received the Cannes 2020 label, which means that he had been selected for the 2020 edition of the festival, which was finally canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"This film, I think it is an important moment in my life", concludes the actor.