At 66 and after having played Julie Lescaut for more than 20 years, Véronique Genest still cannot retire. The actress wants to continue to collect fees, despite the pretty jackpot amassed thanks to the hit series. “It’s the jackpot of my life. It was of the order of a lot. It was around at least 200,000 euros per episode. You know, the numbers fluctuate with success. There was a time when we were going up , we went up, we went up… Can you imagine, we were at eleven million viewers! confided the actress to Jordan de Luxe in 2019.
The actress had also revealed that she was thrifty and pocketed her fees as she went along, which allowed her to build up a nice savings. Three years after these declarations, Véronique Genest again talks about her finances in an interview.
“I need €10,000 a month to survive…”
In the columns of the magazine ICI Paris, the 66-year-old actress who recently shocked her with her remarks on Islam, assured that retirement is “difficult for actors”: “The pensions of actors are not at the height of the time they spend working. They are minimal. Unemployment is capped, not huge”.
Words that she qualifies by then ensuring that she is not to be pitied: “I have goods and savings” she declares before adding that her savings will not be “eternal”. The actress explains in particular that she has a lot of daily expenses: “I had to take care of my mother – the retirement home cost between 5,000 and 6,000 euros per month – as well as my husband’s ex-wife. I have to earn my life, that I work. I need 10,000 euros a month. To hold on, to help those around me”.
If she is no longer on the poster for series and TV movies on the small screen, Véronique Genest is now focusing on the theater: “Creation, festival, school, transmitting: that’s what brings me the most satisfaction” she concluded.
Aliénor de la Fontaine