In "Presidents", a comedy by Anne Fontaine, Jean Dujardin and Grégory Gadebois play Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande trying to come back to the fore.
On Europe 1, the two actors tell how they worked to get into the shoes of these two personalities well known to the French.
INTERVIEW
After
Quai d'Orsay
or
La conquête,
a new film features political figures well known to the French.
In
Presidents
, the filmmaker Anne Fontaine directs Jean Dujardin and Grégory Gadebois, who respectively play a Nicolas Sarkozy and a François Hollande trying together to revive from Corrèze, where Grégory Gadebois-François Hollande has retired.
Invited Monday from Europe 1, the two actors return to this very special collaboration, which has more than at least one of the two former presidents.
>> Find the Tête-à-tête every day at 7.40 am on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here
"François Hollande saw it. He liked it a lot," says Grégory Gadebois.
His predecessor at the Elysée has not yet had the opportunity to see his double on the screen.
"I don't know if he wants to," said Jean Dujardin.
How did the actors work on the set?
Was it a question of imitating the well-known characters of the two former presidents or of drawing inspiration from them?
"It is not at all an imitation. We did not try to account for anything", assures Grégory Gadebois.
"We were inspired by two former presidents, we watched them."
"A return trip between reality and fable"
Jean Dujardin, he prefers to speak of "diversion". "I take the figure, I make the pockets a little, and I take what interests me", he explains, adding that in the treatment of the protagonists, "there are also fantasized things".
By taking an interest in Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, the Oscar-winning actor for
The Artist
was able to identify a particularly fertile playing field.
"I could see that there are sometimes two voices: the voice of a public man, and this little voice that tries to be closer to others. It's fun to play with both", says t -he.
On the other hand, he recognizes that for meeting scenes, "we are not far from imitation".
"We ask people to go back and forth between the real and the fable," he summarizes.
"We are not in the biopic"
With the over-media coverage, politicians have "become more than public figures", continues Jean Dujardin, who finds that with this film, "we made them a little more deadly".
For him, the film is a bit like "a satirical drawing": "We recognize the line and inside, there is room for fantasy."
"We are not in the biopic," he concludes.
"It's a fable with some truth to it."