Alex Lutz is a touch all. Alternately actor, comedian, director, but also playwright, novelist, director, he has already won two Molières de l’humour in 2016 and in 2019, the César for best actor for his role in guy, his second achievement. Her role as Catherine in Catherine and Liliane in the show The small newspaper on Canal+, alongside Bruno Sanchez, helped establish his popularity.
This Wednesday, April 13, he is showing two films. The first : Vortex by Gaspar Noé, in which he plays the role of a drug-addicted son who tries to help his sick mother, who is losing her mind, and to approach his father, with whom he has had a rather complicated relationship for a long time. The second : In the shadow of girls by Étienne Comar, in which he plays the role of an opera singer who agrees to lead singing workshops in prison with incarcerated women.
He will also be on stage with his show Alex Lutz in which he takes us on a journey through his life, from June 23 to July 3, at the Théâtre Libre.
franceinfo: Your three news items put you in diametrically opposed roles. Does that mean you need to challenge yourself a bit?
Alex Lutz: No, that means that I do this job for the pleasure of being curious professionally. It’s important to me to be able to really vary the pleasures, the objects, to create something both personal and which aims to affect a small team opposite. That’s still the pretty crazy goal and the pretty crazy dream when you do this job.
To be hyper-emotional, to convey feelings, emotions, have you always been like that, since you were little?
I find it crazy to convey an emotion in music, crazy to convey an emotion by dancing, painting, filming things, performing on stage.
Hyper-emotional, that, I don’t know. In any case, to love through art, to express things, that, yes. That, I know from a very young age, it was my cam. It’s always the artistic that completes my knowledge and makes me vibrate, I can’t say better.
In your childhood, you very quickly chose the plastic arts, then finally, you will go on stage. And there, it will be a huge revelation. Did you understand that it was there, really, that you were going to be able to express yourself the most?
Yes. In any case, suddenly, the theater, but really the theater brought together a lot of things that I already loved in the drawing, that I could have in mind. It was moving, it was in relief. Viewpoints can change. Yeah, I think that’s great. It’s a village, a plateau, there are so many trades, different crafts and it’s exciting.
At the same time, what made you want to immerse yourself in this profession as well, was first of all the stage, to go on stage, to meet an audience eye to eye. What will happen there, precisely, with your one man show. 130 dates have already taken place in Paris and in all regions. Is this your playground?
The stage is a place where I feel good. It’s a house that reassures me more, that I know better.
I did so many dates with my previous show and my company… That’s why when parents are sometimes worried about their kids wanting to play or embrace those careers, I find that in fact, it there is no problem. Encourage them to be very curious.
You go very fast, many say that you like it, that you need to play, that you are a workaholic. Does it come from your childhood dyslexia?
Yes, it creates a slightly different relationship to concentration, which can perhaps, in a more classic and academic course, be a little painful or disabling, in particular time with a relationship to slowness, etc. Or speed. For example, I read slowly, but that’s not a bad read, it’s like a read where I remember lots of things. On the other hand, I read the paragraph for a very long time!
But you go very quickly behind!
Once it’s figured out, I think we draw fairly quickly.
Does that mean your parents encouraged you a lot? Your father assured you, that’s for sure. Mom, German teacher. What did they bring you?
Precisely, they never looked at this profession as not being one, as a fad. They gave me a taste for curiosity, for culture. My father is someone who reads a lot. I didn’t have parents who brushed it off, as if it weren’t an option.
Since 2015, you have become a director of your own films: The talent of my friends, guy, Triple gallop revenge and for guy, you received a Caesar. Does it destabilize? It feels good ?
It does everything you say! All of a sudden, it’s a good point that you are given. The look of people in the trade on your work, me who so brilliantly missed my studies, it is important all the same. People who have had a great journey and pat you on the shoulder saying: “Say, that was it!“You say to yourself:”That’s great“.
It’s funny because you really have this sad clown side. There is a very poetic side in your way of playing, in your way of looking, in your way of doing, of proposing too. There is a Harlequin side, there is a pantomime side…
Perhaps. Yes. By dint of being told to me and that things are done, I realize that there is as much laughter as not laughter. And then, the poetry… There is this brilliant sentence: “Without poetry, nightingales would burp“, it’s true.