“I was very impressed by Sandrine Bonnaire”, confides Sofia Essaïdi

gang is

growing!

, a miniseries presented out of competition as a preview at the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival and broadcast this Monday at 9:10 p.m. on TF1, brings together Audrey Fleurot, Camille Lou and Julie de Bona once again in a large historical and romantic fresco produced by Iris Bucher and directed by Alexandre Laurent.

But

follows the fate of not three, but four women during the First World War.

Audrey Fleurot puts on a prostitute's basque, Camille Lou, a nurse's uniform, Julie de Bona, a nun's outfit and the little news, Sofia Essaïdi, the boss's blouse of a boss of 'factory.

The singer and actress recounted this experience to

.

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It seems that you really wanted a role in costumes…

Yes !

For years !

I'm a big fan of period films and series, I love it!

I was quite sad that I never did.

I was hoping that it would be offered to me one day.

I am delighted to have been able to do so with such a spectacular series.

A period series without means is difficult.

What fun do we have to play in costumes?

There are the costumes, but also the sets and the extras.

When you come out of your dressing room and see half-dead soldiers on the ground, horses in all directions, such realistic reconstructions… There is almost a moment when you confuse reality and fiction.

This allows us to be in an instant truth.

I had imagined it, and it was better than I had imagined.

We are projected, it is as if we were suddenly pushing you into another reality.

That helps.

My character, Caroline, has a real trajectory of liberation.

At the beginning, she is really very skimpy, and having corsets, tight costumes, that helped me a lot.

With the costumes, there is something playful, the kid who disguises himself reappears in you.

How would you introduce your character, Caroline?

She is a bourgeois who will be led to take over the management of her husband's factory when he goes to war.

She lives in a house that is not hers, that of her in-laws with whom she maintains rather conflicting relations.

She's a modern woman for her time, but who can't express herself the way she wants to, who can't be who she is and who lives in a restrained world.

A role that is the opposite of what you release in life...

The shooting was very hard for me, because I have a lot of energy, I am inner, but also very outward-looking.

This work on restraint exhausted me deeply.

What interested me in this role is her journey of liberation and self-acceptance.

I love composition roles, going against who I am naturally, it's enjoyable.

I like to challenge myself, to do things that seem difficult and trying to me.

That's why I have to rest a lot after filming.

I give myself a lot, but when I finish, I'm pretty drained.

How did you become part of this “Charity Bazaar” team?

Very easily !

I was received wonderfully well.

The fact that people knew each other in the team created a great atmosphere.

In the end, over the seven months of filming, the four of us were only reunited twice!

We are a bit of a couple in this series, Audrey and I, on one side, Camille and Julie, on the other.

When the four of us met for the first time, they hugged me and said, “We're so happy you're with us!

".

There was something very simple and very normal.

Not for a second did I feel like I needed to find a place.

How was the collaboration with Sandrine Bonnaire, who plays Caroline's cantankerous stepmother?

How lucky I was with Sandrine Bonnaire, but also with Grégoire Colin, who plays Charles, Caroline's husband!

They are two exceptional actors.

I had a crazy pleasure to know them because I admired them a lot.

Sometimes there are encounters with which everything is aligned: we speak the same language, we like and consider the work in the same way, we get involved in the same way... And all of a sudden, there is something hyperfluid.

I was very impressed with Sandrine Bonnaire at first!

But she's such a simple, kind and sympathetic person, who doesn't talk about it so much, even though she could.

After a few hours, we were already talking about intimate things and it was like that during the whole shoot.

I had a lot of trouble leaving her!

Caroline finds herself in the very modern situation of reconciling work and the role of mother...

This is going to be his fight.

For her, it is not a choice to go to work.

This is the difference with our time.

It's going to be heartbreaking for her.

She is madly in love with her daughter, that touched me.

His daughter's love will lead him to do the impossible.

She also wants to protect her from her stepmother.

She is also madly in love with her husband, and that, I love too!

There are so many stories in this era that revolve around arranged marriages in the bourgeoisie.

I was happy that we were telling a real love story.

As they love each other deeply, she is also ready to do anything to help her husband, even if it means having to put her daughter aside a little.

She is torn between love and love.

Her choices are guided by love for her daughter or her husband.

I am a great advocate of love.

And there,

A fiction that deals with the Great War from the point of view of women is quite rare, as are the characters of female business leaders… Do you consider “Les Combattantes” to be a feminist series?

Our real desire was to talk about the Great War, and how all of a sudden, women who have never had any responsibilities other than managing a house, will find themselves managing businesses!

If the series also gives wings to today's women, then we will have won everything.

I want everyone to be on the same level.

I don't want women to be above men, nor men to be above women.

I want everyone to have the same chances in life, for me, that's feminism.

I want everyone to have the place they deserve, desire or dream of… Whether you are a man or a woman.

The moment we don't give a shit anymore, we will have really advanced in life!

Who are “Les Combattantes” of today for you?

These are the people who fight to be truly themselves, to free themselves from codes and shackles, from conditioning, from what they are forced to be or not to be.

I consider myself today as a fighter for inner freedom: to be and accept yourself as you are and dare to be who you are.

The only worthwhile fight, even if I really don't like the word fight, is the fight with yourself.

The one that individually allows you to be the best version of yourself.

This is the only way to really be happy.

Everything else, what we are made to believe we must have to be happy in life, is very fleeting.

Before wanting others to change, let's look at ourselves first, let's change in ourselves what makes us not ourselves.

Then, thanks to this,

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