Ep 24: The backdrop of "Cheyenne and Lola" on OCS with Virginie Brac

Virginie Brac is a woman on the ground.

At 65, the author and screenwriter does not plan to write a book or a series without knowing what she is talking about.

To feed her many thrillers or season 2 of

, she met police officers.

To talk about the condition of migrants and feed the screenplay for her new series,

, she also visited Ouistreham and the Calais jungle. 

Cheyenne and Lola

is the story of a meeting between two women: Cheyenne therefore, who gets out of prison and cleans up on ferries and Lola, a selfish and lost Parisian who has just arrived in the north of the France to find her lover.

But the two women will find themselves embroiled in an infernal spiral in the heart of a daily life where bandits, housekeepers and migrants mingle. 

The success of this series is based on the character duo Cheyenne and Lola, played by Veerle Baetens and Charlotte Le Bon.

And on the magnificent staging of the Flemish director Eshref Reybrouck: "To make something so beautiful, so luminous, without betraying the substance, without being sentimental, by really making poetry, me, I am amazed ", supports Virginie Brac.

In SERIELAND, the podcast of Europe 1 Studio by those who love series and make them, Eva Roque gives a great interview to the creator and screenwriter.

Why did she decide to tackle this theme?

How did she work with director Eshref Reybrouck?

How would she describe the bond between these two women?

What memory does she have of

?

Virginie Brac reveals the secrets of her creation to us. 

(Transcription)

First scene of episode 1

Virginie Brac: It's a difficult moment.

They are forced to clean up a crime scene.

The thug who asked them that wanted to be honest with her.

He gave them 50 euros, which is in his head, exactly what they are worth! 

Eva Roque: Hello Virginie Brac!

Virginie Brac: Hello. 

Eva Roque: Thank you for accepting our invitation.

I am very happy to receive you to discuss this new series in 8 episodes to be seen on OCS and carried, in particular, by a duo of women.

They are two exceptional actresses: Veerle Baetens and Charlotte Le Bon.

The rest of the cast is remarkable, special mention to Sophie-Marie Larrouy.

Actresses sublimated by the production of Eshref Reybrouck.

Cheyenne Lola

is the story of an encounter.

These two women who will find themselves embroiled in an infernal spiral.

Forced to hide the body of a first victim.

Then smugglers of migrants on a ferry making the trip between France and England;

The galleys will multiply.

So much so that we say to ourselves that everything will necessarily end very badly.

Virginie Brac, tell me about the day you wrote for the first time on your computer or on a blank page, the names of Cheyenne and Lola.

Virginie Brac: It was after seeing

.

When I created

, I wanted two female heroines who were caught in a dynamic, in a dramaturgy, a la

That is to say that each time, they will go from disaster to disaster.

But every disaster is actually a success.

There you have it, that's the whole ambiguity of

.

So I wrote it like that, saying to myself: "I have two characters. What would I like to see on screen at the moment in France that I don't see?".

It's a friendship between two hot women, but not hot in the same way. 

Eva Roque: Did you write the first names Cheyenne and Lola on your computer or the first names arrived after? 

Virginie Brac: I believe that Cheyenne's first name came a little later, when I saw Veerle Baetens.

She agreed to join this series.

It was very strange.

I wrote the role almost for her.

I did not know her at all, it was my producer who had the idea, as I had the idea of ​​this female character on whom everything is based.

She had to be attractive, she had to be rebellious, she had to not be "cutesy".

We had to believe it.

We really wanted to work with Veerle.

And with her generosity and incredible spontaneity, she said yes. 

Eva Roque: If I understand correctly, that means that you had your two female characters, you knew where you wanted to go. 

Virginie Brac: Yes, absolutely!

There was another name but I didn't want to keep it. 

Eva Roque: Once you knew it was Veerle Baetens who was going to play this woman, did you really polish the character? 

Virginie Brac: Oh yes, completely. 

Eva Roque: And the first name of Cheyennes arrived ... 

Virginie Brac: Yes, it happened before I wrote.

When I found out it was Verlee.

If you want in the movie 

, Alabama has a western side to it.

Cheyenne too.

Me it clicked at that moment and I said to myself: "Here, her name is Cheyenne. Nobody is going to know if that is her real name or not, or if it is the name that she is. gave himself. It doesn't matter. "  

Eva Roque: And you said the word I wanted to take you to.

Haven't you written a sort of modern western with the northern beaches as a backdrop, the Friends bar as a saloon, carriages instead of horses, we get the impression that's it? ... 

Virginie Brac: But totally.

It was the only way to stand out from Ken Loach.

I like Ken Loach a lot but I wouldn't want to watch a series with Ken Loach because a series you have to come back.

You have to want to come back.

So you had to find poetry somewhere.

Beauty had to be found in harshness.

You had to have that mix of comedy and tragedy that I was looking for. 

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Eva Roque: We are going to talk about comedy again.

But first, we're still on the first episode.

Cheyenne and Lola meet.

Cheyenne has just been released from prison.

She was jailed for not reporting her thug husband.

She is a cleaning lady, now on a ferry.

She tries to earn a little money and she invests in a society that looks a bit like a cult.

A scam based on what's called a Ponzi scheme, you know, those financial schemes that gave rise to the Madoff affair.

She also has trouble recruiting clients.

Lola, on the other hand, is very sure of herself.

She has no doubts.

First dialogue between them in a toilet scene. 

Cheyenne and Lola Preview

Is it the scene that is the first meeting between these two women and the first scene that the actresses have shot together? 

Virginie Brac: Ah, I don't remember, but I don't think so. 

Eva Roque: Were you very present on the set?  

Virginie Brac: No, not at all.

I worked a lot upstream with Verlee, Eshref Reybrouck the director, Charlotte and all the actors.

We did readings.

Eshref is someone who works in depth.

Before, we reviewed everything, we scrutinized everything.

We checked that the actresses were good with their lyrics, that they understood the nuances because there are a lot of nuances and a lot of double meanings.

We go through several registers: emotion, comedy, tragedy.

And then Verlee is Flemish and Eshref and Flemish.

They don't have the same sensitivity!

We don't have the same decoding of the scenes.

It was very funny.

Moreover, we worked a lot on this to be sure.

Afterwards, I went on the set, out of courtesy, to say hello, but I didn't say anything.

It was too late. 

Eva Roque: But can we say that you are in a way a showrunner on this series, that is to say that you are more than a screenwriter?

Virginie Brac: Yes in the sense that I am the creator of the series, I prefer that to the term showrunner.

In addition, I have a real bond with the producer who supported the project who supported us for the casting, and of course, I was there.

For the costumes and the sets I was also there.

I was consulted all the time in Paris.

We were discussing.

But afterwards, once the decisions were made, I withdrew.

First of all because I had work on the side.

And then, it's no longer my role.

We have to let the director take over the series.

You have to let your imagination go. 

Eva Roque: And when you see the result on the screen? 

Virginie Brac: I am amazed.

I am really blown away by the work Eshref has done.

I really believe it comes from this northern soul.

The series takes place in the Haut de France, in a disadvantaged environment.

To make something so beautiful, so luminous, without betraying the substance, without being sentimental, by really making poetry, me, I do not know, I am amazed. 

Eva Roque: What is the first scene that you saw on the screen that was edited and that you saw?  

Virginie Brac: I wonder if this was not the scene with the migrants on the beach. 

Eva Roque: And you were blown away right away ... 

Virginie Brac: Yes, we don't know if they are true, if they are not true.

They are very beautiful, they are very elegant.

At the same time, they are very poor.

We are not lying to you about the reality of things.

It's a bit dreamlike, it's weird. 

Eva Roque: If we looked at your script today, would I find, for example, details on the clothes of your characters?

Any details on the sets you might have imagined or it wasn't your job? 

Virginie Brac: If all the same a little.

Cheyenne's clothes go without saying.

Obviously she's going to be in jeans.

Obviously she's not going to spend a lot of money on her clothes.

Eva Roque: It's funny, that you say that it goes without saying, because in fact, it goes without saying when you discover the series and when you discover this character.

But there is still a little trick.

There are these tank tops that show off her navel.

She might have a tank top that fits into her jeans.

It's just detail, but there is something in it.

I have the impression that you have designed everything very precisely with the team ... 

Virginie Brac: So there it was very precise.

What gave us a hard time were Cheyenne's tattoos.

So that Eshref had to redo a hundred times because we looked in all directions.

You see a tattoo which is very beautiful all over the body, which is inspired by Amazonian tattoos, which is at the same time original, carrying his dream.

They are arrows, they are not words, they are not dates.

It is not vulgar.

We sought this balance. 

Eva Roque: While we don't see it that much tattoo ...

Virginie Brac: We don't see it.

But when she takes her clothes off and you see him anyway you had to be careful, you see him. 

Eva Roque: There is another character who has tattoos.

It's Nadège who is one of the friends who lives in the camp, where Cheyenne lives.

She has an absolutely stunning tattoo on her and all over her chest.

Is this a fake or a real tattoo? 

Virginie Brac: It's a fake. 

Eva Roque: Cheyenne and Lola are both fascinating.

Cheyenne has an androgynous side.

I imagine you designed it like that ... 

Virginie Brac: I hadn't designed it like that.

This is where Verlee proves her immense talent, is that it is she who shaved. 

Eva Roque: She shaved her hair? 

Virginie Brac: Yes, we were working and she said to Eshref like that in front of me: "You know what? I think I'm going to shave. I think I have to shave for this role."

We say to ourselves: "My god, where are we going?"

We knew that she was quite beautiful and that she had an incarnation that allowed it.

But still we were a little worried.

So we tried on wigs and obviously she was perfect and it was obvious.

You realize an actress who says: "Me, I'm going to do that, for this role."

Eva Roque: There are two sentences that I would like us to listen to that are spoken by men in front of Cheyenne. 

Cheyenne and Lola Preview

Cheyenne and Lola is the journey of two women, but it speaks a lot about relationships with men.

That was also what you wanted to describe to us ...

Virginie Brac: No, I don't think so.

It will rather be season 2. I wanted to talk about relationships between women because in fact, there are almost only women.

The men are there, but they are often antagonists.

In fact, things happen when they get off the stage.

They are a bit of an obstacle to going around in circles.

They have relatively few relationships with them.

They talk about their relationship with them, but to support the relationships they have with each other. 

Eva Roque: Basically, I saw above all a series on women.

I would even say a feminist series.

And with these preventative men going around in circles.

But what I wanted to ask is that basically you wrote a series, a director took hold of your words, and made a work of them.

After us viewers, we also seize this work and we can see things that you did not want to put ... 

Virginie Brac: It's more that I put them without my knowledge.

Because if the spectator sees them, it is because they are there.

There are several dimensions in a work and I don't think the author has everything under control.

I don't think the author is aware of everything. 

Eva Roque: How would you define the bond that unites these two women, Cheyenne and Lola? 

Virginie Brac: It's very complicated, it's friendship.

But on Lola's part, it's a loving friendship, that is, it's an emotional dependence.

Lola has this emptiness in her.

She has this pretty deep relationship problem.

If Cheyenne was gay, Lola would be in love with her.

Cheyenne is completely blocked on this.

So it becomes a very deep kind of friendship.

And Cheyenne also takes longer to recognize that she needs Lola and that her life without Lola is not her life. 

Eva Roque: So me, there is a scene that marked me first by the realization.

Sorry, I'm still talking about it.

But because the light in this scene is absolutely sublime.

And then there is this dialogue between the two women.

They are on the roof of the caravan where Cheyenne lives.

You can feel the sun on their skin.

And then the wind which sweeps the dust a little. 

Cheyenne and Lola Preview 

I find that there is everything, and first of all the quality of the dialogues.

We feel the interpretation that is successful.

There is both emotion, poetry and this Charlotte Le Bon laugh that resonates and feels good because we are also in the register of comedy on several occasions.

It is really a very beautiful moment which is sublimated by this music too.

Who made this soundtrack? 

Virginie Brac: He is the musician from

, still a Flemish.

And I really like the music he made. 

Eva Roque: Do you see that too in the image? 

Virginie Brac: Yes, it happened late. 

Eva Roque: I imagine that must give you an emotion ...

Virginie Brac: Yes!

Finally, the producer sent me the extracts.

We said which ones we preferred.

I haven't completely discovered it, but it gives me crazy emotion.

I, who am a woman from the South, this band of Nordics who have seized on this story, and its melancholy, its earthiness, its dynamism and who have made it theirs.

They made it into a real northern western. 

Eva Roque: Were you moved to tears, sometimes when you saw certain scenes? 

Virginie Brac: Oh yes.

The scene at the end of episode 6 in particular.

They really look like they're tearing apart and it's awful.

They are both desperate.

This is what is magnificent. 

Eva Roque: Do these two women look like people you've met in your life? 

Virginie Brac: I would be tempted to tell you as an author, obviously.

But we make amalgams, compilations of people we know.

The brain works on things that we have picked up, even when it comes to people that we know very little and who have struck you with something, a look, a laugh.

And you're going to transpose it.

You will add it, like when you make plasticine.

These people exist, yes.

Otherwise, we could not touch the heart of the spectator. 

Eva Roque: Do they also look a bit like you? 

Virginie Brac: Yes, of course.

Moreover, there are authors who write like that in a scattered way over several series, I don't know how they do it.

I wonder how they manage to take hold of the characters and stick to the character, I don't know if it's painful for them, if it's easy. 

Eva Roque: How was it for you?

How much writing time did you spend on

? 

Virginie Brac: It's hard to say, it was in two stages, three episodes and five episodes.

In any case, the last five episodes had to go fast because of the shooting so I took six months, seven months. 

Eva Roque: Was it painful? 

Virginie Brac: Oh no, not at all. 

Eva Roque: Were you happy to live with it? 

Virginie Brac: Of course, but I was completely carried away by the story she told me every morning. 

Eva Roque: When you write the last episodes, you know the cast, do you hear their voices while writing? 

Virginie Brac: No, not their voice.

I think of her, yes.

I imagine how they will interpret it.

But I do not put game indications for example.

I put indications of sets and costumes, but I do not put indications of play or very little, and certainly no indications of staging.

I don't want to block the creators who are the actors in their work. 

Eva Roque: That means that, for example, there are no didascalies to indicate the register of emotion, or of comedy ....

Virginie Brac: I'm going to put some didascalies, yes, in general on the emotion and the resonance that it must have.

But that's it, because actors always surprise us when they get hold of a character.

We think they're going to say that while crying and in fact, if they say it while laughing, it's ten times louder. 

Eva Roque: What magic!

Me, I saw a lot of men in this series.

I like the way women treat them.

Sorry, but because sometimes it is with force and violence too.

Extract from a small dialogue between Cheyenne and Nadège, one of Cheyenne's friends. 

Cheyenne and Lola Preview

She is extraordinarily strong Cheyenne ... 

Virginie Brac: She says that, obviously, because it's Cheyenne and she has the mind.

But she herself will be pushed to its limits.

No matter how strong we are, everyone has limits, so she will be pushed to her limits. 

Eva Roque: Besides, at the end of this dialogue, we see another girl, Hope.

What a name!

She gets black men into a truck.

They are migrants.

They will also become the heroes and heroines of this series.

Behind the story of Cheyenne and Lola, what did Virginie Brac tell you about our company?

Virginie Brac: The hypocrisy which consists in pretending that there are no migrants when there are everywhere.

And we do nothing.

They are there and we do absolutely nothing.

Also, nothing is done for those left behind.

And women are at the bottom of the ladder.

What is there under women?

The migrants.

My goal was to show how there is a form of mutual aid, a form of resourcefulness that can take hold. 

Eva Roque: I remember reading the book by Florence Aubenas, which happened on these ferries.

It tells the daily life of these women who work on the ferries.

Was this a source of inspiration for you? 

Virginie Brac: Totally.

It brought me to Ouistreham, where I did not see at all the same thing as Florence Aubenas.

We don't have the same imagination, that's normal.

She was a documentary, it was something else, an absolutely beautiful and very powerful book.

Me, it is almost the writer of thrillers who takes the top, and I notice immediately that there are barbed wire for the migrants.

I ask the security guards questions, etc.

And they say to me: "Oh no, but there we put barbed wire because in fact, they make attacks to get on the ferries."

I fall from the clouds.

I am a little surprised.

And then afterwards, I saw where I was going to be able to locate my arena. 

Eva Roque: So you need this somewhat realistic side, this idea of ​​going there, almost investigating ...

Virginie Brac: Yes, I was also in the jungle because I was working on a series with an Israeli director.

A series project we had on migrants, precisely.

So we went to spend several days in the jungle.

We had contacts, etc.

The two experiences got mixed up.

Yes, me, I start from reality to transpose it.

I need to know how it goes to know how much I'm telling nonsense.

I want to know how far I can go starting from the real.

Eva Roque: Your series has another great quality, in my opinion, there are a few sentences that are delivered with force, but sentences that hit the mark.

I think of this passage where Cheyenne stole jewelry to pay a debt to Yannick, who is a bit like the man who runs the region, who is a bit like the boss.

He makes his law. 

Cheyenne and Lola Preview

I love this passage.

It's just two sentences, but that says it all.

Because behind this story of friendship between these two women, you also tell the story of society, you tell what the bourgeoisie is in the Hauts de France, etc.

It's all very written and thought out ...

Virginie Brac: Of course, being out of step and showing society.

But I think the craze for the playoffs is where it is based.

Why do people watch the series so much?

Why has the series now become an audiovisual object?

We are almost as important sociologically, but that's because we only talk about society and we talk about it a lot and in a very nuanced way. 

Eva Roque: So that brings me to the question I wanted to ask you because you are also an author of detective novels, for you, the series has become a creative space in which you can say everything?

Do you have more freedom with the series? 

Virginie Brac: I won't say more or less, but it is certainly my space.

This is certainly what I prefer to write.

I think you have to actually write novels to have the breath of the novel in the series, you see?

You have to lead your characters, you have to feed them and you must not be afraid.

And when I reread War and Peace 2 or 3 years ago, I read it with the eye of a screenwriter.

I said to myself: "But it's a series, it's completely a series".

It's written like a series.

So in fact, we didn't invent anything.

It's a truism.

Yes, for me the series is my preferred mode of expression, certainly. 

Eva Roque: So here, what you are saying is that if you had not written these detective novels before, maybe you would never have made it to the series ... 

Virginie Brac: Yes, certainly.

Yes, I still wrote seven novels or something like that.

That's certainly my training, because I never went to scriptwriting school.

It came almost naturally.

But it must be said that when I published a novel at Le Seuil, they told me: "You have audiovisual writing". 

Eva Roque: How did you understand it ... 

Virginie Brac: I understood that indeed, I should write for the cinema, they told me very nicely. 

Eva Roque: Do you continue to write thrillers today? 

Virginie Brac: No, not at all, I don't have time.  

Eva Roque: And when you write a series do you write your story with, the sets in mind, a light, something that is close to the image, to what you want to see?

Virginie Brac: Yes!

I start from a universe, and I logically follow the story. 

Eva Roque: Hence the interest and the need to get along well with the director ...

Virginie Brac: Yes.

At the first meeting, I saw that he understood what had to be understood and that he was going completely in our direction.

We were not betrayed.

He did more than we hoped. 

Eva Roque: If we come back to the theme of migrants, which is the common thread of

a, do you think that you could have written this series five or ten years ago? 

Virginie Brac: I think it has come now because now there is still a kind of acceptance.

Now, we can talk about almost anything in the series.

If only because we talk about everything abroad.

Maybe I'm more trusted too. 

Eva Roque: Did you want to do a feminist work by doing

? 

Virginie Brac: Yes, I wanted to make a series with extraordinary women, which is offbeat and above all that it ends well and that they succeed, that it is a success story. 

Eva Roque: We can't spoil it, but you will see that these women, indeed, they have a lot of problems.

But what you were saying is quite correct that behind the tragic situations of these two women who are sinking into an infernal spiral.

Humor is never far away.

Or at any rate, there is a form of irony that I find all the time.

The character of Mégane, Cheyenne's sister, played by Sophie Marie Larrouy, is the perfect example.

And then there is this exchange that I really like between Lola and Esperance.

Cheyenne and Lola Preview

What I like this passage.

We feel that you are having fun with prejudices and stereotypes ... 

Virginie Brac: Exactly.

They are each confronted with stereotypes about the other, with a touch of caricature, but which, in fact, reveal all the ambiguity of the relationships they can have.

Charlotte Le Bon is absolutely exceptional in the role of this blonde.

So, I don't know how you constructed it, but it's still one of the characters that evolves the most as the episodes go by, in my opinion.

In any case, the viewer's gaze changes enormously towards her and she becomes extremely endearing. 

Eva Roque: It is even horrifying!

At the beginning, I took the girl who is too pretty, who arrives at a party, etc.

The one that annoys you because it is there.

It's very difficult in France to find someone who has Charlotte Le Bon's plastic all the same, who is also perfect.

This Barbie doll has a lot of problems.

I play on the silly blonde stereotype a lot and she herself plays the silly blonde since that's how she does it.

And that's how she manipulates everyone.

But in fact, she's very smart, and she's trapped in the depth of her feelings for Cheyenne.

And in fact, she's giving it all up for Cheyenne.

She is delighted to be there.

She has no universe of her own.

He's a very interesting, very endearing character. 

Eva Roque: Did you think of Charlotte Le Bon right away? 

Virginie Brac: No!

I didn't know Charlotte Le Bon at the start. 

Eva Roque: And when you see her in casting ... 

Virginie Brac: Ah bah yes it was sure that it was her. 

Eva Roque: Do you remember the scene she played in the casting? 

Virginie Brac: Yes, it was a much longer scene.

Unfortunately, she was cut.

It's when she does migrant coaching.

In fact, the scene is longer, it's funnier, but it was bad the day of the shoot, I was there.

They were late.

It was cold.

It would have been necessary to better coach the extras who played the migrants.

In short.

Finally, we had to cut the scene a bit. 

Eva Roque: It doesn't matter much to cut a scene!

I recommend her, she does a little bit of coaching with these migrants.

It's extremely funny, because you can tell she's totally out of place.

The end of the series remains open.

Well, you already told me a little at the beginning of the interview, there is already a season 2 that is in your head, even a third. 

Virginie Brac: Yes, of course. 

Eva Roque: And everyone agrees?

The actors, the director, etc. 

Virginie Brac: I don't know!

I don't tell them about it.

No, because since I'm a really bad pitcher, so I'm pretty sure if I start talking to them about it, they'll tell me it's wrong. 

Eva Roque: So you have to have written ...

Virginie Brac: Yes, that's how I fight.

It is by writing. 

Eva Roque: I really recommend that you watch until the eighth episode and until the last scene.

Did you say goodbye to your characters a little bit?

Or are they still in you today?

Virginie Brac: No, they are still there.

They are still there because if I start writing season 2 soon (in a month), I will probably write it with a young screenwriter, Fanny Talmone.

They better be there.

I can't let them wander. 

Eva Roque: Why are you hiring a co-writer with you? 

Virginie Brac: Because I have too much work and I wrote too much on my own.

I write all the time, on my own, and now I'm looking to create partnerships with writers that I like and with whom I got along well.

And I brought Fanny in on episode 8 that we built together, etc.

And I saw that we were working very well.

So I would like her to write. 

Eva Roque: It feels good to work a little as a team! 

Virginie Brac: Yes, it feels good.

Eva Roque: But besides, Virginie Brac, we owe you the script for season 2 of a series that we love at SERIELAND. 

Extract Engrenages

You wrote season 2 on your own.

What memories do you keep? 

Virginie Brac: Very good, because they didn't know where I was going.

Neither the producer nor the Channel, but it was moving forward episode after episode.

And then, I was the last resort.

They had exhausted several teams of screenwriters.

They didn't know what they wanted.

I knew what I wanted.

I had watched, I had seen that the two actresses who, in season 1, have small roles: Caroline Proust and Audrey Fleurot.

I immediately saw that they gave off something great and that we could work on an opposition.

You could really work on two women in a man's world.

So me, I do my thing with the author of L'Arche who is Eric Barahir and who was a police officer. 

Eva Roque: I like it when you say that with great humility.

We imagine when it represents hours of viewing and pleasure, we say to ourselves there is a crazy job behind.

Seems easy to you? 

Virginie Brac: Easy, not because I work a lot.

But I don't write in pain.

Not at all.

I write naturally, so it didn't strike me as extraordinary.

Besides, when it came out, no one thought it was extraordinary. 

Eva Roque: And you would have imagined such a success? 

Virginie Brac: Not at all. 

Eva Roque: These are the good surprises ... 

Virginie Brac: I was happy when I saw it.

Because there too, it was well done.

Gilles Bannier did an extraordinary job.

I said to myself: "It's good, we do like the Americans."

Then after that the Americans said to me, "Oh, that's great what you did on Gears."

Me, I wanted to say, that I copied everything!

Eva Roque: When you say the Americans, have you met American screenwriters? 

Virginie Brac: Yes, plenty, American producers. 

Eva Roque: Has it changed anything for you in your life? 

Virginie Brac: Oh yes, if I am known abroad, it is thanks to season 2 of

Eva Roque: Sorry for the question, but when you tell me Americans, what is it?

Are these producers calling you and asking you to come and write for them? 

Virginie Brac: Yes, they ask me, but that does not interest me at all.

I don't like the way Americans work at all.

I am very polite every time, but it's no. 

Eva Roque: But it must still be impressive.

I imagine, you get a phone call from the United States saying: "We would like to work with you" ... 

Virginie Brac: Yes, it often happens at festivals where producers invite you to have a drink.

I have been to Los Angeles several times. 

Eva Roque: But are you in France? 

Virginie Brac: Of course.

In France, we do not work in the assembly line.

So now, though, I'm starting to get phone calls thanks to Cheyenne and Lola.

In the United States they tell me: "We want a European job. You would stay in Europe. We want a European show." 

Eva Roque: It's amazing! 

Virginie Brac: It's completely new. 

Eva Roque: So I imagine for series that are more aimed at HBO, for example ... 

Virginie Brac: These are big producers who work for everything.

I don't know what they are thinking, but they had some topics for me that emailed me and I said, "But you know me, I'm not going to go live in Los Angeles and I don't like the Americans way of working. And I think you don't need anybody. "

I brush well with the grain anyway because it's very nice, I don't want to spit in the soup. 

Eva Roque: And Cheyenne and Lola, they saw it during festivals I imagine. 

Virginie Brac: There you go, like Cannes Séries. 

Eva Roque: Like what it also plays, these small moments.

Just to go back to Engrenages a little bit, if you had to keep one particular scene that you wrote for Engrenages, which one would it be? 

Virginie Brac: A scene that is very feminist in a way is Audrey Fleurot, a lawyer who is starving, who coaches a woman she must defend and who victimizes herself.

The way she coaches her, I wrote it, she plays it very well, we have the impression that they are both desperate.

It's about the victim problem, it's about how to defend yourself. 

Eva Roque: It's funny because if I didn't know that I was talking about Gears, I could say that we were talking about Cheyenne and Lola. 

Virginie Brac: Yes, absolutely, there is a link!

When I tell you two women in a man's world, it started there. 

Eva Roque: You see that the men are present. 

Virginie Brac: Of course I am not saying that they are absent!

Eva Roque: In season 2, don't tell me they're going to take power ... 

Virginie Brac: No, but it's definitely something I wanted to work on.

Their relationship to men.

There, for once, in love. 

Eva Roque: So, you are the author of other series like Paris.

And then there is one that I particularly liked. 

Preview

Extract from a great series called

which had been broadcast on France 2 and which is available today on Salto.

There were also some strong female characters in Les Beaux Mecs. 

Virginie Brac: Yes, but there it was difficult because the commission was 50 years of organized crime in France. 

Eva Roque: And you have succeeded through several generations of bandits ... 

Virginie Brac: Yes, here we are, deconstructing so as not to be chronological.

It was good to mix the two: the Old World and the New World. 

Eva Roque: But I even wondered if

were not the female

Les

Virginie Brac: There is no such thing as the Old World, and the Old World still weighs heavily on

Eva Roque: Great series to watch on Salto.

What are your next projects outside of

season 2?

Virginie Brac: I have a lot.

The problem is that we are not allowed to talk about it.

I learned that. 

Eva Roque: It's possible for reasons of confidentiality, and so as not to get your ideas piqued ... 

Virginie Brac: No, it's not so as not to pique my ideas! 

Eva Roque: Have you ever had an idea for a script taken? 

Virginie Brac: No, I don't really believe in it.

First of all, the ideas are in the air, so you shouldn't think you're original.

You just have to work faster than the others because if you have an idea, you can be pretty sure that there are several people who have it around the same time.

Originality does not exist.

Singularity can be, but originality, I don't believe in it much.

And then maybe there is plagiarism sometimes.

May be.

Me, that didn't really happen to me, no. 

Eva Roque: So, you work on several series and you manage to juggle between your characters? 

Virginie Brac: It's very painful.

This is the thing that I hate par excellence.

It happened to me three years ago, where I didn't have any signed series, so I kept accepting to write projects.

Producers call me to write treatments, to submit ideas to them.

And since nothing was signed, I necessarily accepted.

We do not know.

And then we need the money.

But it was horrible.

It was really very difficult. 

Eva Roque: How do we organize ourselves, is your day divided?

Virginie Brac: It is per week.

That is to say, one week I will work on a series to be able to dive into the universe, another week on another series, another week on another series.

I hate that. 

Eva Roque: In addition, with this need to document yourself because you told us earlier that you need this realistic side.

Virginie Brac: Yes, of course.

And then, we call people, we have appointments, we go to see them in cafes, especially detective series.

I am very careful, so I often have meetings with the police, lunches or I ask so as not to be ridiculous.

Obviously, I don't do it in reality, but it shouldn't be silly. 

Eva Roque: You could have been a journalist? 

Virginie Brac: The new journalism, yes.

Journalists like Florence Aubenas.

So tempted that I have the talent.

I listened to a podcast recently on France Inter, which was absolutely brilliant with Fabrice Arfi a journalist from Mediapart.

I bought these books. 

Eva Roque: So you like the survey! 

Virginie Brac: Yes, but it is the serial investigation.

Because we get to the bottom of people.

We go to the bottom of the characters, we go to the bottom of the situations.

Journalists who present facts to me supposedly under the pretext of objectivity, without relating them to people and human dramas, for me, that is not good journalism. 

Eva Roque: And when you were a child, what did you dream of doing for a job? 

Virginie Brac: I didn't have the slightest idea. 

Eva Roque: How old does writing stories happen? 

Virginie Brac: I come from an environment where women do not work at all.

Never.

So, as a child, we grew up without a professional project. 

Eva Roque: That is to say that the women stayed at home? 

Virginie Brac: They were bourgeois ... 

Eva Roque: When do you start writing stories? 

Virginie Brac: I started very early.

But the idea that it would become a professional project came later. 

Eva Roque: Thank you very much Virginie Brac for this great interview.

All 8 episodes of Cheyenne and Lola are to be enjoyed on OCS.

Do not miss this new original creation. 

"SERIELAND" is a Europe 1 studio podcast

Author and presentation: Eva Roque

Production: Christophe Pierrot

Editorial project manager: Adèle Ponticelli

Distribution and editing: Clémence Olivier, Magali Butault and Tristan Barraux

Graphic design: Karelle Villais

Director of Europe 1 Studio: Olivier Lendresse