“These are characters that can only rub off”

The actor, Jean Reno, is the exceptional guest of Le Monde d’Élodie from February 12 to 16, 2024. He traces the thread of his career around five of his most emblematic films on the occasion of the release on Wednesday February 14 of film “Retirement Home 2” by Claude Zidi Jr.

Jean Reno agreed to spend this whole week in Le Monde d’Élodie on franceinfo. The opportunity to take stock of this journey of multiple collaborations with the greatest actors and directors. Having become an essential actor, the Franco-Catalan born in Casablanca is one of the few to have succeeded in developing a career that has crossed borders. His meeting with the French was obviously marked by the role of Enzo Molinari in The big Blue (1988) by Luc Besson. In this journey, he knew how to touch on all registers, comedies, thrillers and even dramas: Nikita (1990) and Leon (1994) by Luc Besson, The Crimson Rivers by Mathieu Kassovitz in 2000, Operation Corned Beef by Jean-Marie-Poiré (1991), Godzilla by Roland Emmerich (1998), The pink Panther by Shawn Levy (2006) or even The Roundup by Roselyne Bosch (2010). With his personality, he became the protector, the uncle of the family, the one who is both funny and authoritarian. The father too, the man of confidence, the one to whom we entrust things and the one behind whom we stand for advice.

He will be showing, Wednesday February 14, in the film with Kev Adams and Daniel Prévost: Retirement home 2 by Claude Zidi Jr.

franceinfo: When The big Blue a hit, you are 40 years old. Isn’t that what ultimately protected you?

Jean Reno : Yes. Without a doubt. Do not fall into forbidden things. Not kissing the bottle more than necessary, of course. And there is a notion, I believe which is by Clint Eastwood: “The duration“, because when we see Clint’s journey, we say to ourselves: “But it’s not possible, he made spaghetti westerns and the guy makes films like ‘The Roads to Madison’ where you fall to the ground because it’s so beautiful“.

“The duration is important because we can visit. With what is ephemeral, we have not visited enough of what we know how to do, we have not visited the other and perhaps it is -this is what keeps me, the duration.”

You quickly became part of Luc Besson’s life. You have become one of the members of his cinema family. He imagined Nikita and you in the role of the cleaner. This role and this film, even today, are cult. How did you work on this role and what did it bring you?

A guy from the East. He’s a Serb. That’s what I imagine. He’s a guy who comes from there, from the East and the Berlin Wall still existed at the time. I imagined a terrible cold, a cold of the soul, a cold in the family, a cold in the house, a cold outside, the snow, all that, it’s hard. The cement, the ruins. I filmed in Bucharest and also in Budapest, and I saw these things. The cleaner is a guy from the East. And there, you saw, it immediately cools down, the atmosphere, because I have acid. Look, I have a can of acid, I put it on the table and you have to talk to me because otherwise things will go badly. It starts right away. I remember him, I remember Victor a lot.

At that moment, there is another part of your personality that we discover, it is your voice. This calm, calm, authoritative voice that sends shivers down your spine. Did you discover it then too or were you already aware that you had it?

She came from Big Blue. Luc pushes his voice a lot. I have also done a lot of dubbing because I consider it part of my job.

Mufasa in The Lion Kingit’s unavoidable!

Yes, it’s true, I really like the idea of ​​translating feelings through voice. Absolutely. And besides, the voice changes depending on the scene you are playing. Often.

Is this role in Nikita who will become of Léon hasn’t reassured you?

I’ll tell you, there’s one thing all these characters have in common, and that’s loneliness, including Godfrey. No, but I have undoubtedly accepted my solitude.

“Curiously, I am given this solitude in my characters. I am given solitude and expected to spring from this solitude hope, death, life.”

It’s surprising because it feels like you can’t live alone. But that’s what you also say, you assume that there are two parts in you, that is to say that you like both being with family and at the same time having freedom.

Of course.

You like the dark part and the light part. It’s also your personality.

It’s clear. It is important. I think that to live as a couple, you have to live alone. You don’t have to wait for someone to take you out of this solitude because there are two of you.

Leon is ultimately the extension of Nikita. Luc Besson decides to release this character and make a film about it. This proves to what extent you have sublimated the score, that you are an asset and that your personality contributes something. Is that also your desire to bring things to the table, not to limit yourself to doing just one role?

Of course. But you can’t tell a director who has a point of view, who has an ego that doesn’t fit into this studio and yet he’s great! : “Listen to me, I’ll bring you something on this stage!“

No, but that still means he was listening.

Obviously. He has an eye. And I can’t tell him that it’s not true. It’s totally true. But you have to bring things in a subtle way.

Léon is a cleaner, certainly, but he is also a killer with a big heart.

Basically, he’s still an assassin. At the end of the day… If you pause for 30 seconds on the fact that a guy is being shot on set, wow! No ? These are characters that can only rub off, so we’re not going to wallow in them anymore. You see what I mean ? There will be something left.

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