Presented by Denis Dubois, vice-president, original content, at Quebecor, as a “series that looks like nothing”, Audrey came back features an endearing, dysfunctional middle-class family witnessing an almost miraculous event. More than fifteen years after being discovered inanimate on a country road, Audrey (Florence Longpré, at the top of her art), 35, finally emerges from a coma.
“It was one of the most difficult roles to play; with the script, we had a color code to know where Audrey was in her journey, says the actress, who met with Guillaume Lambert several people who experienced coma while writing the script. It was great the fun because I was in the front row of all these actors when we were shooting; I was completely in the listening and the relaxation. As an actress, it’s rare that you experience that. “
Having on the clock a season of Can you hear me ? and two seasons of Adulthood, Guillaume Lonergan was the perfect director to bring to life this dramatic comedy tinged with dreaminess created by Florence Longpré, who must have been asked to play the title role, and Guillaume Lambert, who does not appear in the series since he was shooting his next film, Niagara.
“I had to do the pitch, but I knew it was for me, reveals the director. It spoke to me a lot and what I felt was what they wanted. Reading the first three scripts, I couldn’t imagine anyone other than Florence in the role. I told her to forget that she was the author of the series, that Audrey was her. “
Tight knit
The thirty-something, with the help of her caring parents separated for years, André (Denis Bouchard) and Mireille (Josée Deschênes), of her brother Clément (Dominic St-Laurent), who has always been jealous of her, of her benevolent father-in-law Marcel (Martin-David Peters) and his sassy half-sister Sarah (Zeneb Blanchet), will have to relearn to speak, to walk, to read, to count, to perform all the small gestures that we consider for acquired. Over the course of her rehabilitation, it is not just Audrey who will find herself transformed.
“We really wanted to choose actors who looked like real people,” explains Guillaume Lambert. In our approach, what matters to us is to make the real world speak, to give a microphone to people who have no voice. Florence comes from the North Shore and I from the South Shore; the middle class spoke to us a lot in its awkwardness, in its way of going through the extraordinary, even in the banal. It is through living room scenes that we unravel the dead ends and traumas of the past. “
It was one of the most difficult roles to play; with the script, we had a color code to know where Audrey was in her journey
Very enthusiastic on Wednesday during the press screening in Longueuil of the first four of the ten thirty-minute episodes of the series, for which he convinced Alexandra Stréliski to sign the musical signature, Charles Lafortune, executive producer and vice-president of development at Pixcom , exclaimed that it was “a show no police ”. Which is not false, although an investigation will be conducted by Audrey to find out the circumstances of her accident.
In the third episode, where Audrey reconnects with Cynthia (Joanie Guérin), we will also discover who Audrey (Ellicyane Paradis) and her best friend (Charlie Lemay-Thivierge) were at 17 years old. However, it is only in the sixth episode that we will know more about the enigmatic creature half-man, half-wader (Colin St-Cyr-Duhamel) created by James Lavoie, costume designer for Cirque du Soleil.
“I grew up in Brossard, so for me, the banality of everyday life was the most important thing,” says Guillaume Lonergan. The idea, too, was that in the construction of the scenario there should be images that come back, as we had done in Adulthood, and dreamlike scenes, as in Can you hear me ?. I always wanted to make a very realistic series in which there would be elements of magic or dreams. It was all in Audrey came back ! “
Evoking in turn the realism of Scandinavian series, the magical South American realism and indigenous folklore, and carried by a distribution in tune, Audrey came back softens as much as it makes people laugh. Better yet, the series comes at a time when, like its heroine, everyone must relearn to live in a new normal.