He made his debut at age 4, appearing as the son of Madame Butterfly in the opera where his parents performed. Today, at the age of 74, after having burst onto the cinema screens, the actor Daniel Auteuil sings his songs on stage. He will be on tour this spring in Quebec to present his latest album, If you’re afraid, don’t be afraid of love.
He admits to having avoided the world of operetta a little as a teenager. “I fled operetta and opera because, when I was young, I found it very old-fashioned. We were in the Festival town of Avignon, where this famous theater festival was created. And I was attracted by the text,” he said in a telephone interview, live from the Alpilles, where he still lives.
Then, the song came back to haunt him, briefly, in the early 1980s, during a film shoot. He was the one who sang the theme of the film The under-gifted. We have a big hair in our handor May life forgive mesong accompanying the credits of Love on the slywhich he also performed with Emmanuelle Béart.
But it was the appeal of cinema, more than any other, that won then and always. Today, he plays his own role on stage, with songs he writes. A dream he has cherished for a long time.
Speak
“I always wanted to speak,” he admits in an interview. He also signed a collection of short stories, He acted stupid in chapel, accompanied by drawings by Sempé, in 2002. “But, each time, I was lucky enough to be asked by very great directors. So it would have been awkward to refuse. And I met some great people. And these wonderful encounters allowed me to take on writing today. »
He thinks in particular of his role in Jean de Floretteinspired by Pagnol’s novel, which propelled him to the rank of established star of French cinema.
It was finally very recently, through his son, to whom he had guitar lessons, that he seriously returned to music. “All my friends are singers and there are guitars in their house. It’s an object that I really like. When I was 14, I tried the guitar, but since I was left-handed, it was complicated. There were no tutorials, there was no Internet at that time. Then, I had a young son, and I wanted to put him on the guitar. I bought him a little guitar. He is also left-handed. And I bought one for myself! I asked his teacher to show me how to do arpeggios, and he said to me: “Oh dear, don’t worry at your age! Have fun composing!” »
Music always seems to bring Daniel Auteuil back to his childhood, to his parents. “I have always been very close to my parents,” he says. And you’re right, it’s a way of paying tribute to them. »
A book from his mother
It was in his mother’s library, now deceased, that he one day found the first poems which he decided to put to music.
That was about five years ago. “I had collected some books from my parents, and then this book fell. Inside, there was a dedication: “To Dany, my darling son”. » His mother once bought him books “for when he grew up”. He had never read that one. They were poems by Jean-Paul Toulet.
This is the first time he will take the stage in Quebec. “I am very impressed because Quebec is, among other things, the country of song. »
However, he had come here, in winter, to film The widow of Saint-Pierre, with Juliette Binoche. “We didn’t recognize anyone because it was -40 and we all had hats! » he says.
Here, he will sing around twenty songs of his own and will be accompanied by four musicians. “There is a unity in this show, which is both very poetic and very rock. »
Accustomed to playing in the theater, he finds a new lightness with the music show. “I know how a theater scene works. I know how to hear the audience. I can hear his breathing, his rhythm. I know if he’s bored, if he needs to speed up. So. It’s something I know well and which I really like. And I also like it in this form, with the music. It’s lighter for me. It was a lot more work because it’s very technical, the song. But I’ve been touring across France for three years now. I did 150 performances. And each concert makes me want to do another one. It’s very fun. »
However, he is not abandoning cinema. There is a film coming out soon, Thread, which his youngest daughter, Nelly, produces and in which his eldest, Aurore, plays. It was he who wrote the screenplay, the story of a disenchanted lawyer who will rediscover the taste for his profession by defending a guy he absolutely wants to save. “It’s a psychological investigation,” he said. It is both a trial film and a psychological investigation. »