Each family has habits that become traditions, unwritten rules. To outsiders, these customs may seem absurd, but to members of the household, they are blatantly natural. In the Mercier-Prigent-Delors-Marquez family, we throw our shoes in the basketball hoop when we walk through the door at the end of the day.
While this detail lends a certain authenticity to the new series family weekend, it’s really the story and the complexity of its characters that run the show. First there is Fred Mercier (Éric Judor), father of this endearing blended family. Then there is Clara, a 15-year-old environmentalist, Victoire, a clumsy 12-year-old sportswoman, and Romy, a fairly intelligent 9-year-old child. Three young girls from three different mothers (Laurence, Marie-Ange and Helena). And there is Emmanuelle Lemay, new mother-in-law of this brood, doctoral student and “Quebecer for the rest of life” for Fred.
The one who is nicknamed Emma is brilliantly interpreted by the Quebec actress Daphnée Côté-Hallé, who describes in an interview an experience of easy adaptation during the filming of this first French-language series of Disney +. “Honestly, it was a cakewalk,” she says. In France, they were really welcoming and extremely kind to me. There was a magic thing in all that, because I felt a bit on a trip, ”says the one who spent almost all of her summer on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Having been alone in a foreign country, in times of a pandemic and for three months, Daphnée Côté-Hallé explains that the dream could not have been one. But the actress indicates that she has developed a great bond with her French colleagues.
“We really became a kind of family on the set. So, what you see on the screen, it’s a bit what we lived for real. Except that I’m not in love with Eric! “, she says, laughing.
However, the public really gets caught up in the game of this love, far from the passions of soap operas. “It’s not ‘do we love each other or don’t we love each other’. It’s more like “we love each other, it’s clear, clear and precise that we want to team up, and we find solutions to adversity together”. Even my boyfriend believed it! she says.
A Quebecer in Paris
Although Emmanuelle’s Canadian origins are not the central story of the series, they remain important. Thus, a few times during the show, which chronicles the weekends of this blended family, there are jokes about local stereotypes. We talk about caribou and maple syrup in particular. “Yes, it’s cliché at times, but it’s done with lots of love. It’s not in mockery, ”explains Daphnée Côté-Hallé with reason.
“I am in no position to say that I do not correspond to these clichés. With my boyfriend, we make maple syrup, we hunt bears and I build myself igloos in the winter in which I sleep. She adds that this is what would have charmed the judges during her audition. The young actress says she spent a few moments, between takes, highlighting nuances between Quebec and Canada, which led to additions here and there to the series, allowing Quebec audiences to recognize themselves in it.
We really became a kind of family on set. So, what you see on the screen, it’s a bit what we lived for real. Except that I’m not in love with Eric!
“It is certain that the accent, it was complicated at the beginning. It was a challenge for me, to keep my Quebec accent, but to make myself understood by them, ”explains the actress, for whom this is a first role in France. “I didn’t want to be subtitled or to spend hours and hours having to double myself with a fake accent,” adds the one who says she is an accent sponge.
Successful bet for the Quebecer, who knew how to preserve herself while being understood. The few exceptional but oh tasty coronations confer a powerful sense of identification, much needed for this French-speaking series to carve out a place for itself in La Belle Province.
A family of strong women
Daphnée Côté-Hallé particularly enjoyed playing Emmanuelle Lemay, especially for her optimism, but also for the fact that she has her own professional quest.
“You see that the series was written [à majorité] by women”, mentions the Quebec actress in reference to the construction of her character. She further indicates that family weekend easily passes the Bechdel-Wallace test for female representation, which requires that at least one point during an episode or film, two named women talk to each other about something other than a man. “The female character is well developed, her main quest is not in relation to a man, but rather in connection with the family and her profession”, indicates Daphnée Côté-Hallé, who said she found it interesting to defend this light character, but still deep.
The Quebecer is also grateful to have had scenes of emotions in the series: “It also did me good to give these nuances to the character. »
“The human experience was great and the professional experience was really rewarding,” concludes the one who crosses her fingers for a second season.