Quebecer Daphnée Côté-Hallé arrives today on the screens of 120 countries thanks to the French series family weekend, on Disney+. “I still can’t believe it! she confides, laughing.
• Read also: First concert in seven years for Stromae
• Read also: Montreal inaugurates a skating rink downtown
• Read also: A baby and a show for “Ordinary Mother”
“I’ve done a bit of television here, in Quebec, but I’m not known at all. I have never carried a series on my shoulders and here I am doing it for the first time with a main role in France, on Disney+. It’s completely surreal, “says the actress, in an interview with The newspaper.
Indeed, Daphnée Côté-Hallé has mainly defended secondary characters on our screens, her name appearing in the credits of Miscellaneous facts or Victor Lessard. family weekend is by far its largest role, with guaranteed distribution across the planet and in 45 languages.
“Basically, it’s really flattering. They didn’t choose me because I’m famous, or have a certain reputation. They chose me because they wanted my own energy,” she says.
A Quebecer in Paris
This energy, she puts it here at the service of the character of Emmanuelle Lemay, a Quebecer sent to Paris for her studies. However, she decides to stay there longer than expected after falling in love with a French father, played by Éric Judor.
The adaptation will still not be without clashes: the three daughters of this man will make life difficult for their new mother-in-law throughout the eight episodes of 30 minutes each.
And this time, the Quebec origin of his character is not a pretext for a string of clichés or easy gags on our cultural differences with our French cousins. A “refreshing” approach, says his interpreter.
“They didn’t want to play on it. Obviously, that fed some of our improvisations, but the fact that my character was a Quebecer was secondary. I was a woman trying to integrate into a family from a different background. It feels good to play that, ”says Daphnée Côté-Hallé.
With Eric Judor
Before leaving for Paris – where she spent three months last summer – she suspected that her playing partner, Éric Judor, enjoyed a certain popularity in his native France. But it was only on the spot that she realized the extent of it.
“Bus drivers stop in the street to take a picture with him! It’s really intense. But Éric is an extremely generous person, he didn’t make me feel like a big star at all. I was very comfortable very quickly,” she explains.
If it is for the moment too early to evoke the idea of a second season of family weekendthe actress is hopeful that the series will bring her “other great projects”, here as elsewhere.
In the meantime, Daphnée Côté-Hallé is working on the web series pathetic symphony – “an absurd comedy with a feminine touch”, she specifies – which should be shot this fall.
- family weekend airs starting today on Disney+.