At 45, the safe bet of the private channel puts on the corset of Marguerite, a prostitute in search of a loved one, who came from Paris to get closer to the front in the Vosges, at the very beginning of the First World War.

A character whose "determination prevails over fear", summed up the actress during a press conference in June.

Like its big sister "Le bazar de la charité" (2019), a mini-series in which Audrey Fleurot played a bourgeois woman leaving her husband, "Les combatantes" traces the destinies of "out of the ordinary" women, according to TF1, under the leadership of the same artistic team.

A "guarantee of quality" for the actress, who accepted the project from its inception.

Another motivation, the subject of the Great War, "a lot seen from the point of view of men", while "it was a very rich period for women who were going to start working in factories and would not stop".

Step by step

Their honor on TF1 proves it: "we really benefit from a golden age of series for women and in particular those of 40 years", recognizes the actress with AFP.

"The female characters have long been the foil of the male characters, now they have their own destiny and so much the better. But we would never speak of a series + with the destinies of men +" notes the actress.

"The next step is to no longer say + oh well, it's a feminist series because there are female characters".

Feminist or not, in any case she collects heroines with a strong character.

After having played the lawyer with long teeth in "Engrenages" (Canal+), the Lady of the Lake in "Kaamelott" (M6) and the mistress of an SS in the middle of World War II in "a French village" (France 3) , she makes the heyday of TF1 in the skin of Morgane Alvaro, the crazy cleaning lady and gifted investigator of HPI.

Launched in 2021, the series has exceeded 10 million viewers, unheard of for a fiction for 15 years.

Not enough to turn the head of an actress who has "climbed all the steps" step by step.

"It takes a step but it's not as if things happened to me at 20" or "overnight", she assures, "more able to manage things, to put things into perspective, and to savor".

- Prostitute or witch -

The native of Mantes-la-Jolie discovered her vocation from childhood, alongside her firefighter father at the Comédie Française.

Since her appearance in 2000 in a clip by rapper Sully Sefil, she has distinguished herself in theater, cinema, notably in "Intouchables" in 2011, and of course on television.

Tall (1m73) and with a deep voice, the actress said ten years ago in Liberation that she had a cold and haughty look, despite her pungent humor, which hit the mark at a press conference.

Like when the producer of Les Combattantes awkwardly affirmed that the role of Marguerite corresponded “perfectly” to what “Audrey releases”.

"I don't know how I should take it," said the actress.

"Anyway when you are redhead you are (...) either a whore or a witch, both suit me".

These shots remain "very present in the collective imagination", she justified to AFP, happy to be able despite everything to interpret "very beautiful characters" and not "to have built herself" on her beauty .

Soon in the credits of a thriller for Arte ("Winter Spirits"), the hyperactive will shoot another this fall ("Infiltré(e)") for France 2, before returning to the north to complete season 3 of HPI.

"The idea is always to try to make a better season than the one before, so it's quite a challenge," she promises.

© 2022 AFP