For "Balthazar", Tomer Sisley "sewed up a corpse, for real"

• TF1 is broadcasting from this Thursday, 9:10 p.m., the fifth and final season of its hit detective series,

  Balthazar.

• Tomer Sisley puts on the coat of the title role one last time, the gifted medical examiner Raphaël Balthazar.

• The actor takes stock, with

  20 Minutes

  , of his five years spent in the shoes of the troublemaker.

  He also talks about his future projects.

He knows how to make the dead speak like no other!

Tomer Sisley is putting on the coat of the gifted medical examiner Raphaël Balthazar this Thursday, at 9:10 p.m., on TF1 for a fifth and final season of

.

met the actor to take stock of his five years spent on this hit detective series.

He also told us about his upcoming projects.

When do you know it's the right time to stop?

It's a matter of feeling.

The idea is above all not to overdo the season.

I prefer to frustrate rather than get drunk.

, like all stories, has its own longevity.

Five seasons with so much success is great and already very rare.

I prefer to stop at the top before becoming boring.

These five years on the series have given me a lot, but it's very time-consuming.

That is to say ?

The days start for me at 5:30 in the morning and end around midnight.

They are particularly energy-consuming this evening during the filming period, but also during the preparation and even in post-production.

It's really a lot of investment.

The producer very kindly acknowledged this work by citing me as an artistic collaborator.

And then, I have other projects that I wouldn't have been able to do if I had had to shoot a new season.

These multiple reasons to quit came at the same time, I think it was the right time.

We have the impression that Balthazar is looser in this new season…

In the fourth season, we left for a slightly darker universe.

It ended in apotheosis since Balthazar found himself a fugitive… But it's not very happy!

To end this series, it was necessary to reconnect with the essence of what

is, that is to say someone rather solar, even when he faces adversity, especially in the adversity of elsewhere.

The more he is in shit, the more he broods, the more he deceives himself so as not to show that he is doing badly.

It's the modesty of clowns.

This fifth season deals with a lot of rather dark things, but filtered by a Balthazar who could not be more smiling and lighthearted.

During these five years, what has Balthazar brought to you as a person?

I do not know what to say !

I still have the feeling that it is first of all me who feeds Balthazar.

I've never spent so much time with a character in my entire career.

Five years and more than thirty episodes is a lot of time in the same costume.

Balthazar is the character in which I put the most of myself, in a sometimes immodest way... I'm almost pissed to have put so much of myself into it, because I say to myself: "How am I going to reuse this stuff? which belong to me for other characters now that I have shown that to such an extent in

 ?

This is my problem today.

Give me back my life!

(laughs)

Can the story of Balthazar be summed up as that of someone who is grieving?

Sure !

He does it his way.

He goes through many stages over the seasons to achieve this.

Not everyone grieves that way.

The last sequence of the season suggests that there could be a spin-off of "Balthazar", is the door open?

Certainly !

Perhaps the producers are even considering it strongly.

I don't know, you'd have to ask them.

In any case, I heard noises from the hallway.

What is the craziest thing that happened to you thanks to "Balthazar"?

Probably to have done this stunt of the biplane that Belmondo did not do in

… No, sorry, what

made me do completely crazy is that I attended for real at an autopsy and stitched up a body, a corpse.

That's crazy!

You mention Jean-Paul Belmondo, is he a model for you?

Oh yeah !

I grew up craving testosterone and being a superhero.

The closest thing to it was Bebel, with this legend of the actor who does all his stunts, who is physical.

My early childhood, that was it.

It's a big reference, of course!

You talk about testosterone and, at the same time, we find Balthazar again as a drag queen…

I'm so glad you mentioned that!

I fought for three years to have drag queens in

r.

I insisted to the screenwriters: Why?

Because we are on TF1, in prime time, with millions of people watching us, and I think we have, if not a duty, in any case the possibility of possibly feeling a minimum of responsibility for what we can bring to culture in France.

I have enormous respect for drag culture, it's an art in its own right, totally underestimated.

It is so important that it influences the fashion world.

I wanted him to be honored.

We finally got there in season 4. A hero like Balthazar is certainly open-minded enough to be able to put on a drag queen costume himself.

It's in the character's DNA.

He breaks with the norms, he is not where we expect him.

He is capable of spending four hours putting on makeup just to see what it feels like.

] toured with us.

You directed a few episodes of “Balthazar”, do you want to go back behind the camera?

Yes.

I take pleasure when I participate in this creative process.

We tell the story first with the script, choosing the actors who will interpret it, directing them and filming them in a certain way, choosing cameras, focal lengths, sets, etc.

You can influence that through a lot of different entry points: as an actor, director… But it's by being a producer that you have the most say.

You're going to choose the project, the people you're going to bring together to create synergy: the right director, the right screenwriter, the right actor... I'm leaning more towards that.

If Balthazar looks like you and he's where we least expect him, where will we find you next?

I am currently preparing

Nobody really expected it, we arrive almost fifteen years after the first one, it's not bad!

I find it interesting to tell what becomes of this character so much time later.

I have just finished the post-production of

, a film that I co-produced.

This is a period film that tells the true story of a low-class thug, forced to go on the run with a 6-year-old child who is not his.

These two characters will develop an extraordinary father-son relationship.

We return the copy in a week.

I am also developing two series, a miniseries and a procedural series at the request of TF1.

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