Famous writer, Stéphane Belcourt has not set foot in his hometown since high school. We could conclude that success went to his head, but we would be wrong. If Stéphane has avoided returning, it is because he once lived in these places a secret and painful first love with Julien, the bum from school. Decades later, however, here he is agreeing to sponsor the bicentenary celebrations of a local cognac: the other local glory. Already plagued by untimely reminiscences, Stéphane remains silent when he realizes that Lucas, his designated young driver, is none other than Julien’s son.
Adapted from the popular autobiographical novel by Philippe Besson by filmmaker Olivier Peyon, stop with your lies stars Guillaumede Tonquédec in the role of this novelist who is afraid of suffering again if he remembers too much.
“When reading, I found that there was material for a film; the ending is shocking. It is a novel that is divided into two parts: the part in 1984, with these two young people and their teenage love story, then, in the 2010s, the meeting between this writer and the son of his first love. I found it very original and very beautiful. And I didn’t remember seeing that in the cinema, ”says director and co-screenwriter Olivier Peyon during an interview held at Cinemania last fall.
“I felt this little thing in me, which is completely unspeakable, and which I wanted to preserve – call it the spirit of the novel, he continues. I carried it in all versions. Whatever the imperatives and liberties taken in the adaptation, whatever the filming conditions and the unexpected: I tried to remain faithful to it. »
tears of joy
For his part, Guillaume de Tonquédec describes his participation in the film as a happy coincidence in life.
“A few days before I was contacted, a friend told me about the script, which he had just read. My first thought was, “How would I like to play a role like that.” Four days later, Olivier called me. You can not make that up. »
There followed a meeting between the actor and the filmmaker in a very busy café in Paris. Soon, however, the ambient hum died away.
“It was a really intense meeting”, recalls Guillaume de Tonquédec, suddenly starting to smile irrepressibly.
And to explain: “We had been talking for a good two hours, when I had a desire to pee. Except that I didn’t want to break the magic of the moment: it was very special, what was happening. We were on the same wavelength, Olivier and I, and I half-understood that he was offering me the role for good; that he saw no other actor than me for the film. So I cut him off in the middle of a sentence, reached out my hand, and said, “It’s good for me. Why wait ?” Because, more seriously, it’s like a story of love or friendship: when it has to be done, you might as well dive in without waiting. It was then that Olivier burst into tears. »
These were tears of joy and, above all, relief. Because what Guillaume de Tonquédec did not know at the time of the said meeting was that at the time, Olivier Peyon had been trying to get the project off the ground for more than four years, without succeeding.
“The financing had been difficult upstream; the film had come a hair’s breadth from being made more than once before it all fell apart at the last minute. The actors are not necessarily aware of these hazards, and that’s fine. But in short, there, everything was close. That Guillaume accepted on the spot, that meant that we could start filming without further delay”, sums up the director.
A special shoot
Guillaume de Tonquédec was, as he made it clear from the start, just as eager to get started. For good reason: the actor was inhabited by a kind of certainty that this film would not be, to use his expression, “like the others”. What followed proved him right.
“What’s wonderful is that during the filming, it turned out that everyone, from the rest of the cast to the members of the technical team, had their hearts set on telling this story for personal reasons,” reveals the actor. The story touched everyone in one way or another, whether in relation to oneself or in relation to a loved one. »
Olivier Peyon opines, before adding: “In the team of around thirty people, there were five or six people, one of whose parents had confessed to being homosexual afterwards, like one of the characters. Regardless of the issue of sexuality, there were others who identified with Lucas and his difficulty in communicating with his father. Because it is also one of the subjects of the film: incommunicability, family secrets… Victor Belmondo [le petit-fils de Jean-Paul Belmondo, qui joue Lucas] fully invested. I ended up understanding — and this is just my interpretation — that he wanted to make the film to say something to his father, with whom communication perhaps seemed difficult. It is a film that transcends the single question of “gayness”. »
This time, it’s Guillaume de Tonquédec’s turn to approve, then add: “It gave a shoot that was both very concentrated and very joyful. It was sometimes very moving. What Olivier succeeded in, I think, was channeling this palpable emotion that reigned on the set, and translating it into the image. »
The actor and the character
He who has been identified more with comedy, Guillaume de Tonquédec (César for supporting actor for THE first name) gets a bit of a makeover with this drama full of nostalgia and human warmth. And his character too, basically.
In fact, Stéphane has made his pain a cocoon from which his unexpected meeting with the son of his first love forces him to extract himself. This does not happen smoothly, but it is the price to pay to flourish, even late, and who knows, finally fly away.
“The advantage of maturity and passing life is that you know what you no longer want. I’ve done a lot of comedies, which I absolutely don’t deny, but as an actor, I never wanted to be confined to a single register. It is for this reason that I told you about having said to myself about the film “What would I like to play a role like that”: because it was precisely not obvious that a filmmaker would think of Me ; that he would see me in such a role. »
However, Olivier Peyon was right. Indeed, in front of the film, we would not see anyone other than Guillaume de Tonquédec playing this tormented writer who ends up healing from his grief by doing exactly what he has always feared: facing the past.
The film stop with your lies hits theaters May 5.