Benoît Poelvoorde will "not even spit on vaccines"

Benoît Poelvoorde embodies a brutal father, mythomaniac and conspirator in Jean-Pierre Améris' Profession of the Father, in theaters since Wednesday

Each week,
20 Minutes
invites a personality to comment on a social issue in their “20 Minutes with…” meeting.
Benoît Poelvoorde finds Jean-Pierre Améris with whom he had notably filmed "Les Emotifs anonyme".
His role as a mythomaniac father for “Father's Profession” allows him to come back to the conspirators, the anti-Covid vaccine, his job as an actor but also his love for dogs.

The pandemic has not quenched Benoît Poelvoorde's thirst for work. If only this summer, we can see it, in theaters, in

Mystère à Saint-Tropez

by Nicolas Benamou,

How I became a superhero

by Douglas Attal, available on Netflix, or

Profession du père

, inspired by an autobiographical book scored by Sorj Chalandon.

In this film, in theaters since Wednesday, Jean-Pierre Améris offers Benoît Poelvoorde the unexpected role of a mythomaniac and brutal father who manipulates his 12-year-old son to send him to assassinate General de Gaulle.

A conspirator before the hour.

And a good opportunity for the actor to discuss with

20 Minutes

recent current affairs issues, his experience after having made sixty films in thirty years or the importance of dogs in life.

You say you are for the vaccine, but are you vaccinated against Covid-19?

Not yet

[the interview was carried out on July 1], but it is out of sheer negligence!

With all the antidepressants I've been taking for years, I'm still not going to spit on the vaccines.

I have been using drugs since I was little.

Without them, I wouldn't be talking to you today, that's what keeps me balanced during the day.

How could I be antivax?

At the same time, it bothers me that I am being forced to be vaccinated.

It's stupid and childish, I'm aware of it.

I am a paradox on my feet ...

Do you ever participate in the debate between pro and antivax?

It is almost impossible to broach this subject calmly.

It has become the new Godwin point so I prefer to abstain because it immediately turns sour.

But what the disputes between pro and antivax reveal goes much further than the vaccine.

That there are such divisions between people is symptomatic of a serious social problem.

This is what worries me.

Are you paying attention to comments on social networks?

I watch YouTube sometimes and am flabbergasted by the hate speeches that can be found in the comments.

But they may ultimately have a beneficial effect, allowing people who could become dangerous to spit out their anger and let off steam in writing ... My character from

Profession of the Father

would be called a conspirator today, but he only yells at him. his TV, which gives him the impression of not being heard and makes him instigate the assassination of Gaulle.

On a personal level, do you sometimes respond to attacks?

I'm not on social media, accounts in my name aren't mine, and I never read comments or reviews about myself.

Neither the positive nor the negative, because we cannot see one without the other.

It is a subject on which I remain consistent and which allows me to keep a balance.

I am always amazed when people talk about cyber bullying when for me it is enough to ignore the trolls to make them harmless.

How did you experience the periods of confinement?

I shot three films during the second confinement and I did not suffer at all from the first.

In fact, I'm quite a homebody, I don't really like going to public places, even though I like to work.

I can spend two weeks at home without going out and without making me unhappy.

I like the rituals.

I tidy my hotel room, my dressing room and my house very precisely because it helps me feel safe.

I hate traveling, even though I have a job that requires me to do it more often than I do.

So why are you doing movies at such a rate?

This reassures me because I am very distressed.

And then, like that, the press has the embarrassment of the choice to decide on which film to meet me.

Just kidding, but I know that not all of the films I make are masterpieces.

I realize this from the scenario that I don't always bother to read.

Sometimes I am surprised when I arrive on the set.

And even more when I see them because, big news, I started to watch the films that I shoot, which I never did before.

Today I experience a form of unhealthy curiosity, of masochism… Because it remains a painful process to see myself on the big screen.

What motivates your choice of films?

Often, I accept them to please friends or friends of friends ... Or for reasons that are not rational.

It makes me laugh when I am asked if I have a career plan.

Each choice is determined by an anecdote, a detail that can often seem ridiculous to others.

I never choose a role by calculation.

What attracted you to “Father's Profession”?

There, I recognize that it was more coherent. I had already shot

Les Emotifs anonyme

and

Une famille à rent

so I was on familiar ground with Jean-Pierre Améris. I had also read and liked Sorj Chalandon's book. I found the subject complicated and the role hard, but I trusted Jean-Pierre. He knows how to be directive which is important. As Gérard Lanvin says, there has to be a boss on a set. Nothing is more unsettling for an actor than to feel the director panicking because he does not know where he is or because there is no precise direction. I knew that would not be the case with Jean-Pierre Améris and it was reassuring because my character, complex, requires a precise dosage in the emotions that he conveys.

Were the scenes of violence against the child complicated to shoot?

Relatives advised me not to shoot the film for this reason or because my character humiliates his wife… I was told that no one could accept to see me raise my hand on a child.

So I hesitated and then I started thanks to Jean-Pierre Améris.

And I understood that the best way to approach the scenes where I have to assault this kid was to start by laughing about it together before shooting them.

I found it less traumatic for him than whining and asking him every five minutes if he was okay.

Is there anything more difficult to play than violence?

The ass scenes in some movies made me much more uncomfortable due to the proximity of the bodies.

I may not look like it, but I am a rather introverted and modest person.

They have an opinion about me that does not correspond to reality.

If Jean-Pierre Améris said to himself: "a mythological character is ideal for Ben", it is because, somewhere, it is the image that I project and that this image, for him, corresponds to this crazy father character to tie ...

Father's madness, isn't that a subject that speaks to you?

This film is about the abuse that children can suffer from their parents and it happens often, more often than you think.

Jean-Pierre Améris told me that he was beaten by his father.

Audrey Dana, who plays my wife in the movie, too.

She even wrote a book on this topic!

For my part, I had a very happy childhood and I have always refused to be a dad.

I am less concerned.

However, I do not feel foreign to the fact of going into a spin.

During a recent junket, I lost my footing because my dog had just died.

I drank so much to forget my grief that I can't remember what I said at that time.

Anyone who has ever lost a dog will understand me.

Have you replaced your dog?

Not yet.

I have another dog, but it's my wife's.

I don't want to cry over my fate, talking about the actor's loneliness in his dressing room or in the evening at his hotel… But all this is happier when you have a dog to keep you company.

It's always better than a whore!

More and more actors have dogs to calm their anxieties, while others prefer to travel with an entourage of agents, publicists, hairdressers or make-up artists to compensate for their discomfort.

You've been touring for almost thirty years, but since when do you really assume that you are an actor?

I started with

It Happened Near You

in 1992. It was a hard-hitting pals 'movie that changed my life after being screened at the Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival. It was a telluric shock for me because I was graduating from Fine Arts and destined for a career as a designer. I traveled the world with this film even though I had never taken a plane! I also met my wife at that time. The after

It Happened Near You

was difficult. I didn't feel legitimate as an actor, even when I took the stage with a

registered model

I finally got used to the idea when I began to enjoy shooting difficult scenes, arranging myself so that my efforts were not noticed.

It was also the moment when I stopped looking at myself on the screen, before I managed to do it again ...

What does being an actor mean to you?

Like saying, "I can do the take fifty times and tweak" or "Tell me what you want and I'll do it."

This is the essence of the job for me.

Although I am not a musician, I appreciate being able to modulate my performance as if I were playing a sheet music.

An example: I just shot

Colors of the Fire

by Clovis Cornillac based on the novel by Pierre Lemaitre.

I play there an unscrupulous banker, a real bastard quasi-collaborator.

As Clovis is a great actor, he knows how to direct us.

He liked to see me stick my tongue out during a line.

It was something that I had done automatically, without realizing it.

He asked me to do it again on the set when it was nothing natural.

Getting there without the viewer realizing that it's an effort for me sums up what acting is: doing little things that no one will ever notice.

This attention to detail is not incompatible with your indifference displayed for the choice of your roles?

I am a paradox on my feet, I told you!

At the same time reserved and in permanent demonstration.

I try to deal with the different aspects of my personality, which is not always easy.

If I start watching my films, I never read and listen to my interviews, and I never see my performances on TV either.

As I have no control over these interventions, I prefer to ignore them.

Even though I try not to say the same thing out of respect for the audience.

Movie theater

VIDEO.

Benoît Poelvoorde: "These roles of big mouthed and a little lame types, I feel at ease there"