Six years after Netflix, Apple TV+ is launching its first French original series… but don’t worry, Connection Has nothing to do with Marseilles, mediocre detective series with Gérard Depardieu and Benoît Magimel. Based on a solid screenplay by Virginie Brac (Cheyenne and Lola) and the energetic direction of Stephen Hopkins (The Fugitive), the six-episode spy series from producer Jean-Benoît Gillig (Unsuspected) is an impossible love story, a metaphor for Brexit and a political thriller against the backdrop of cyberattacks transporting us to England, France and Belgium. Better still, Eva Green and Vincent Cassel embody the cursed lovers.
Without hesitation, the actor, also executive producer of Connection, says that it was the love story that first attracted him to this co-production with Great Britain where his character is expressed in French, English, Russian and Arabic. “Everything else only makes sense when it clings to something you can identify with,” he explains in a virtual interview. All of a sudden, this kind of unacknowledged love, full of remorse, impossible to consummate, really becomes a story. The rest, we have already seen and politics, who cares. I mean, it’s essential, but you can’t keep people in front of a screen on a political issue. Me, personally, I’m bored. On the other hand, to see the tension between two characters because there is too much left unsaid, that interests me. »
Fascinated by Eva Green, the actor was delighted to finally be able to shoot alongside her. “When I learned that it was her, I said to myself, there, there will be a complexity that will settle in, there will be subtlety in the scenes, and, above all, I didn’t have no idea how it was going to turn out, and that excites me. Eva is someone extremely modest, very discreet, reserved, but very courageous and ready for anything on set. »
The chemistry works so well between Green and Cassel, who have since played Milady and Athos in The three Musketeers, by Martin Bourboulon, that it is surprising that no producer or director thought of bringing them together on screen earlier, especially since Marlène Jobert, mother of the first, and Jean-Pierre Cassel, father of the second, had played together at the theater in London. You might think it was written…
“I don’t know if it was written, but I realize that when people are curious about each other, things happen. I was very curious about her; I have always seen in her a special, different actress. It’s funny, it’s as if I saw in his particularity the particularity that I see in me. I’ve always felt a little different, a little weird, a little outsider, and I see it a bit like that. I realized that was a bit like that. So we got along great. »
Complex task
Following cyberattacks in London, which pushed the Thames out of its banks and derailed a train at King’s Cross, a race against time begins between Britain, which is no longer part of the European Union, and France. The two nations want to get their hands on the information held by two Syrian hackers.
Twenty years after their affair, Alison Rowdy (Eva Green), private secretary to the Minister of Security at the Ministry of the Interior, and Gabriel Delage (Vincent Cassel), who works for a private French company run by a certain Dumas (Gérard Lanvin), find themselves on opposite sides. Things get tough when Alison’s fiancé, lawyer Albert Onwori (Daniel Francis), who knows nothing about this love affair, must strip Gabriel of his diplomatic immunity and have him arrested in England. From then on, the suspicious deaths accumulate. In order to save their skins, Alison and Gabriel will have to join forces.
“In a post-Brexit situation, what happens in Connection would be imaginable. Among the people with whom I was able to discuss during the preparation, there is one who said to me: “If you knew the number of important people who die each year and you don’t know. When you know, it’s because we want you to know.” Cyberattacks take place, people disappear for contract stories on the international scene. People have become so wise and unconscious that in many cases there is no need for violence; it is enough to entertain them in a directed manner and then very often, that is enough to make anyone do anything. I find it very interesting that the series is written with real rigor at this level. »
A very French hero
Having agreed to do this series because it illustrated his vision of the world, Vincent Cassel ensured that the action scenes were believable, even if that meant that they were less visual. “Apple had its requirements, but we were not at all in a pre-established American specification; we had confidence in our hard core that we trained Jean-Benoît, Virginie, Stephen, Eva and me. On projects of this type, there is almost a tradition where the guys hit each other all over the place with all sorts of things. However, I wanted to transcribe what I had understood about the reality of people who do this type of activity. In fact, these guys are effective; there are no fights that last three hours. They go straight to the point and things are settled very quickly. So I shortened and re-choreographed everything with deadly effective moves: eyes, throat, balls and knees. »
In the same spirit, Vincent Cassel wanted his character to distance himself from spies à la James Bond or à la Tom Cruise in Assignment : Impossible “I got down to the idea of making him a very French character, of going a little off the beaten track of the beefy spy who gets out of everything. He’s a character who takes it all in stride, a bit like a beaten dog, except that, and that’s an idea of masculinity that interests me, he’s the guy you can count on. When the guy has something to do, well, even if he has to look like shit for six episodes, he’s there and the job is done. »
A chameleon actor par excellence, Cassel slips easily into the skin of Gabriel, both formidable tough guy, rejected lover and unrepentant seducer, to whom he has added a very personal touch. “I wanted him to have this kind of casualness, because the guys who do this job are very dark. Inevitably, when we have seen what is happening behind the curtain on the international scene, we can be cynical and dark. For me, when you are confronted with the raw reality of our world, there are not 36 solutions, you have to have a little humor and a casual attitude, otherwise you commit suicide. »