If there is one artist who taught our national Dany Boon everything about laughter, it is Louis de Funès. As tradition dictates at each end-of-year celebration, the French public is entitled to reruns of its greatest films, to be seen and re-watched with the family, to transmit an ever-present baggage of laughter to the youngest. This is how Dany Boon also discovered the work of his master.
“Louis de Funès is not an actor, he’s just a jerk, an entertainer“
In the columns of Ciné Télé Revue, the most popular Ch’ti in France explained: “If I liked popular cinema, it’s thanks to the films of Louis de Funès, especially with Gérard Oury, and his duet with Bourvil. They were very important in my childhood, they made me want to tell stories around characters that make you laugh“.
And for good reason, explains the one who began his career on stage, before becoming a staple of the box office: “De Funès made me discover slapstick, clownish humor, the sense of rhythm of comedy”. And if today, Dany Boon claims Louis de Funès, the star of “Fantomas”, “The Great Mop”, “The Cabbage Soup“, and “Megalomania”has not always had so many laurels.
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Dany Boon recalls that he was demolished by critics during his lifetime. For example, we read about him:Louis de Funès is not an actor, he’s just a jerk, an entertainer“. To the point where he no longer wanted to shoot grimace scenes, in “Rabbi Jacob“, too upset by the attacks. Danièle Thompson, the daughter of Gérard Oury, would have confided to Dany Boon how the actor fetish of her dad had been very sensitive to this campaign of denigration.
“I’m at 180 – before Netflix, anyway. It sucks!”
He did, however, have a “beautiful reward” that made him extremely proud, and that was “the love of the public” (like Dany Boon). To this day, assures the latter, “he’s the guy who made the most admissions in France. It is at 300,000 million viewers, I am at 180 – before Netflix, anyway. It’s pathetic!” he concludes with a laugh.
AF