Antoine de Caunes is a TV and radio host, he hosts the show Popopop on France Inter. He is also a filmmaker, actor, humorist, screenwriter, writer, director. He publishes an autobiographical book: Personal, published by Sonatine.
franceinfo: You start Personal by dedicating it to Daphne, your other half. Inside, three things in common Emma, Louis and Jules, your adored children. Is it a beautiful declaration of love to your pillars of life, after all?
Antoine De Caunes: I don’t call her a “half” because if I say that, she’s going to fall on me. No, I would say my “three quarters”, because I occupy a quarter of this globe formed by our couple. We have a child together, and there are two more from previous relationships that are, yes, three absolutely fundamental cardinal points of this existence.
I feel like this book allows you to say things that you haven’t really told them.
Yeah, it’s really hard to talk about feelings because I wasn’t raised that way so it’s a backdoor way of telling them a few stories about their father.
You start this book on a frenzy with Charles Trenet by your side and an anecdote on Jean Cocteau, which is very funny and on the origin of your passion, ultimately, music. It is really something that is anchored in you and Charles Trenet also for that matter!
Yes. Trenet is part of the soundtrack. When I was a kid, we listened to Trenet at home, we listened to a lot of music.
You approach your mother (Jacqueline Joubert) throughout this book. We feel that this is your pillar.
Yes, actually, I was raised by my mother and grandmother, so I was raised by women. My father, Georges de Caunes, was on deserted islands, at the North Pole or in the Amazon. I think that allowed me very early on not to see the world as a field of obligatory confrontations, that I had to learn to be a little light.
“My mother was an absolutely solar woman who had survived the war. And as if to counterbalance, she saw life as a gift. It was necessary to find joy, pleasure, a meaning in existence after all these events. Her shared this with me. “
Antoine de Caunesto franceinfo
We realize, through this book, to what extent the imagination has allowed you to go through many moments in your life, to evolve too, even if you say that you ultimately remained this little boy.
I push open doors, but we always have a child who is present, who is more or less hidden. And I love childhood very much. First of all, I don’t take the adult world seriously, definitely. But especially in childhood, there is a freedom of maneuver, improvisation, interpretation which seems to me to be an absolutely precious good.
Friendship is something that goes with this whole book as well. If only when we look at this meeting with José Garcia, who is the driver of the room at the time. You, you watch this boy evolve and say, “He’s the one I need!“
José Garcia’s job was to explain to the public that we should applaud there. And every night he would manage to build a little story around it. I had been fascinated by observing it before taking the antenna. It turns out that he was an actor, he followed the Florent course. I offered to come and play the con and the least we can say is that it exceeded all our expectations.
There is one disappearance that obviously touched you, that of Philippe Gildas. Not too long ago, on social media, you texted him when he was no longer there, telling him how much you missed him. It’s true that Gildas trusted you from the start.
Yes, it was Philippe Gildas, Alain De Greef, Pierre Lescure, finally the whole Canal + band of the time who opened this air space where we could come and try things with the idea of coming to do a little TV, but without the idea of necessarily becoming Michel Drucker. It was “by the way”, to see what it was going to give.
“Philippe Gildas, I loved him because he was not a different man, in the city or on the air. He was the same.”
Antoine de Caunesto franceinfo
You recount this memorable coup for the day of Gildas’ funeral, where you announce to José Garcia that one of his last wishes was for him to come in white. Is he still angry with you today?
I think he’s still mad at me. There, I touched the sacred, but it turns out that Maryse had asked me to speak in the ceremony, telling me that he would have loved that the spirit of Nowhere else come and breathe a little more on this sinister moment. And, I don’t know why, really, I don’t know what went through my mind, I said to her: You know, it would make Maryse very happy if we were all dressed in white. And he came all in white.
You even tell of his reaction when he arrives and says: “Didn’t you do that? Not today !“
He took it badly, but for the reasons I was explaining. But Maryse had a lot of fun even though it wasn’t the best day of her life and then, in the end, obviously that’s what it was necessary to do.
Is it hard to let go? Because it is the first time, finally, that you reveal yourself so much.
Yes. It’s not easy because of course, the golden rule was not to embarrass people in my privacy. It’s a book where I try to tell as sincerely as possible certain emotions, certain impressions, certain moments which are funny, funny, bizarre, and then others which are more personal, but without ever crossing a limit that I think. ‘always imposes.