“The lie must be authentic”

The actor, Jean Reno, is the exceptional guest of Le Monde d’Élodie Suigo from February 12 to 16, 2024. He traces the thread of his career around five of his most emblematic films. On Wednesday the 14th, he stars in Claude Zidi Jr’s film “Maison de retirement 2” alongside Kev Adams and Daniel Prévost.

Jean Reno agreed to spend this whole week in Le Monde d’Élodie on franceinfo. The opportunity to take stock of this journey of multiple collaborations with the greatest actors and directors. Having become an essential actor, the Franco-Catalan born in Casablanca is one of the few to have succeeded in developing a career that has crossed borders. His meeting with the French was obviously marked by the role of Enzo Molinari in The big Blue (1988) by Luc Besson. In this journey which commands respect, he has managed to touch on all registers, comedies, thrillers and even dramas: Nikita (1990) and Leon (1994) by Luc Besson, The Crimson Rivers by Mathieu Kassovitz in 2000, Operation Corned Beef by Jean-Marie-Poiré (1991), Godzilla by Roland Emmerich (1998), The pink Panther by Shawn Levy (2006) or even The Roundup by Roselyne Bosch (2010). With his personality, he became the protector, the uncle of the family, the one who is both funny and authoritarian. The father too, the man of confidence, the one to whom we entrust things and the one behind whom we stand for advice.

He is showing, Wednesday April 14, in the film with Kev Adams and Daniel Prévost: Retirement home 2 by Claude Zidi Jr.

franceinfo: Despite your notoriety and the fact that you have established yourself with extremely serious roles, you have never refused to play in comedies. Is it important to challenge yourself?

Jean Reno : Of course. When I went to Simon’s house, I saw an assistant and I passed “This arm which so many times saved Rome, etc.“And she said:”Hey, here’s another comic“. And I was surprised, why did she say that? I was doing something serious. And I realized that I had this thing in me. I loved the films by de Funès, obviously, but I realized that the comedy itself had a different rhythm.

“The comic twists reality by offering it a scenario reality. We will say the text, but we will not be able to say it as it is written, we will bring it to its twisted world because it has a different rhythm .”

Ultimately, you do this job because you are looking for a form of honesty, the need to take responsibility, to tell the truth, to speak the truth. And we have the feeling that comedies have indeed helped you over time to stay in the truth.

A lot. Fabrice Luchini told me at the end of the Visitors when we met: “You manage to be extremely honest“.

Are you honest?

Oh yes, if I don’t feel it, I don’t say it. The lie must be authentic. TRUE. Otherwise, no! Jean Yanne, who won an acting prize at Cannes and who said: “I had the text on my lap and when I look down I look sad and that’s why I was given the prize“. It was a joke, but there is a bit of that in certain actors. And I don’t want to, I don’t do.

You have an Orson Welles side. That is to say, when he arrived on set, the director would tell him: “Hello Orson Welles“, He answered : “No, I’m not Orson Welles“. And he gave the name of the character he played in the film or in the series. Do you see yourself in this too?

Yes quite. It’s chemical and I remember that with Gary Oldman, he called me several times to go to dinner and I refused all the time. We did it on July 4, after Léon’s death. When Leon blew up with the grenade the next Sunday, we went out to eat together because Leon was dead and I definitely didn’t want to be in front of Gary Oldman during work.

After the release of Big Bluethere will be Operation Corned Beef , a film directed by Jean-Marie Poiré in which you play Le Squale. You are a secret service agent. And there is this meeting with Christian Clavier. Does it match right away?

Right away. We go to see him as he leaves the theater at the Palais-Royal and he crosses the street. I’m on the sidewalk, I’m 20 centimeters taller than him. He’s between two cars and it’s gone straight away. I think I received the script very quickly and it worked.

This duo with Christian Clavier will last and in 1993, he has this film Visitors which will be a huge commercial success. What is incredible is that in no case do you lose credibility, that is to say, you become Godefroy de Montmirail and at no time do we say to ourselves: “But what did he do in ‘The Visitors’? ” Were you afraid of that or not?

No. Style with a leek tail on your head! But again, loneliness. And it’s a tragedy for him. He absolutely doesn’t see things the way Christian does. That’s what’s great, is that these are two totally different universes. He wants to get married and we send him to wander through time, it’s not possible. It’s not possible for him, it’s terrible, terrible, terrible.

And at the same time, despite this solitude, you also embody this actor to whom we would give our absolute trust, that is to say who reassures, you have this reassuring side.

Paternal.

This is where we say to ourselves: “But when is he Jean Reno and when is he Godfrey de Montmirail?”

And I try not to say it. Obviously, at that time. Today I speak, but I think I wouldn’t have done this show at that time, to tell my story because I didn’t want to. A scenario is a lie, but to you it is a truth.

The film, Retirement home 2, comes out Wednesday. It’s funny because that’s the only time you agree to go to a retirement home! Does this mean that age is first in the head.

And also in activity. There are many things I haven’t visited yet. There are a lot of roles that I haven’t been given. This is why the word retirement is a bit difficult for me. I don’t know. Plus, I noticed that I loved telling stories. And that’s my father. For example, with the children, we read La Fontaine. I read the fable. But you can also read the fable without saying all the words, you can tell it in your own words. We read : The wolf and the dog, tell me how you understood it. And There you go. The paternal side works like this.

Watch this interview on video: