“It was necessity that made me come to cinema and now it’s a passion”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Wednesday May 8, 2024: the director and actress, Emmanuelle Bercot. She is starring in director Jérémie Sein’s film, “L’Esprit Coubertin”, which is released today.

Emmanuelle Bercot is one of the most sought-after jack-of-all-trades in French cinema. Director, screenwriter, actress, she shows a lot of intuition in her writing, in her way of acting or directing. In everything she does, we find commitment, outspokenness and above all character, which has already earned her the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 for her role as Tony in My king by Maïwenn. She also received four nominations at the Berlinale for her film, She leaves with Catherine Deneuve. Impossible not to mention her truly stunning interpretation of Lucie Coutaz in Abbé Pierre – A life of combats by Frédéric Tellier. Today, she is starring in the film by the director of the series Parliament Jérémie Sein, The Coubertin Spirit.

franceinfo: It’s a comedy, but also a fairly political film. When you mix the two, which the director did, it gives a comedy of anticipation, which shows to what extent politics and hypocrisy find their way into sport. Is this what made you want to make this film?

Emmanuelle Bercot: What made me want to make this film was the very unique tone of the film. I immediately felt through his casting choices, me in the role of the coach and Benjamin Voisin in the role of the champion, a curiosity on the part of the director to seek out actors who are not obvious for these roles, and to not to be in the cliché. It was the personality of the director and his singularity that made me want it.

The Coubertin Spirit highlights a five-time world champion shooter. He is extremely uptight, rigorous and completely closed off from the world around him. He is a policeman, because we are policemen from father to son in the family, and he is racist. There is a correlation with Pierre de Coubertin and the Coubertin spirit. I have the impression that the director also sought that out through this film.

“Beneath the schoolboy veneer of the film, there is a very controlled and very constructed speech on the part of the director. Both a muted criticism of the competitive spirit and also a satire on the media and political world.”

Emmanuelle Bercot

at franceinfo

Champions are ultimately vehicles for something much other than their sport. They are the vehicles of their coach, of their team, of an entire system, of an entire nation. This is what the film tells and what it also deconstructs, since this Olympic shooting champion will discover that perhaps life is elsewhere, in fraternity, in humanism and in desire.

I’m going to quote a sentence from Pierre de Coubertin, you’re going to tell me what you think: “A small female Olympiad next to the large male Olympiad, what would be the point?“And he specified:”We must continue to seek the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athletics with internationalism as its basis, loyalty as its means, art as its framework and female applause as its reward.“.

My God… Is this sentence true? When you quote such a sentence, I say to myself: but fortunately the world has changed and continues to change. It’s abominable to have said such a thing. I think that women are, in many sports as well as in cinema, showing their power and that they obviously have their place just as much as men and their panache too.

Your father was a heart surgeon. You were totally fascinated by his job, you watched him operate. You have always had enormous respect for the medical world. Your mother was attracted by esotericism. What do you keep from this childhood and this education?

I think I keep this hybridization really between the total fantasy of my mother and a more structured form of another part of my family. I really am that mix. I’m able to go a bit in both extremes.

“I’m someone who was extremely well educated and extremely protected. And I’m solid from all that today. It’s a great opportunity.”

Emmanuelle Bercot

at franceinfo

What made you turn to cinema?

Cinema, for me, strangely, is a bit accidental because it’s the way I found to have a job by going to this film school, FEMIS, which allowed me to say: I I have this job because when you are simply an actress, a young actress, it is very difficult to say I am an actress because you are asked: “So, what did you do? “And in fact, you haven’t done anything for a year. I needed to be able to say that I have a job that works and is well identified. It was necessity somewhere that made me coming to the cinema and now, it’s obviously a passion.

Is it important for you every time you intervene, whether as a director, screenwriter or even as an actress, to say things?

What is important to me above all is to be sincere. I never immerse myself in a film and say to myself: I want to convey this message, but on the other hand, I want the people who watch my film not to be cheated and to feel that the person behind it is totally sincere in what they are saying. ‘she says and is totally inhabited by what she does. That’s my only concern. I would never do something for the wrong reasons, let’s say.

Watch this interview on video: