Benjamin Voisin: “In The Spirit of Coubertin, my character reminded me of a giraffe”
The actor deserves the gold medal for his brilliant interpretation of a virgin and uncomfortable shooting champion who becomes France’s last chance at an Olympic title.
The spirit of Coubertin came to explode the final straight of the L’Alpe d’Huez festival. A non-sensical comedy about the Olympics, a mixture of slapstick, wicked satire (take that Coubertin) and hilarious portrait of a misfit, Jérémie Sein’s first film is a UFO in which Benjamin Voisin imposes his comedic talent. The young actor plays Paul, a gifted shooting champion, a little clumsy but very virginal, who finds himself in the Olympic village for the Paris Olympics. While the French delegation multiplies its failures, Paul will become the last chance for a medal. But a very embarrassing roommate (Riwaldo Pawani with his unstoppable phlegm), his very intrusive coach (Emmanuelle Bercot, hilarious) and a very annoying sports boss (Grégoire Ludig as an ex-karateka) will put obstacles in his way. Sein, who belongs to the team of the series Parliament signs a biting film, which moves between the clear-cut comic strip (we think a lot of Gaston Lagaffe), the scathing social comedy of the French 70s and the American classics (the shadow of Judd Apatow will have hovered over the best films in this selection) . Incredibly precise but also very free (even libertarian) The Spirit of Coubertin would be nothing without its brilliant casting dominated by a fantastic Benjamin Voisin. Express interview.
The first question we want to ask you when you leave the film is: what does it feel like to be beaten by Emmanuelle Bercot?
It is a supreme pleasure. It took me two or three takes before I understood that there was a camera, that it was a film, and that it wasn’t honest on his part. She was very professional (smile). More seriously, I love Emmanuelle. We are starting to know each other, we have made three films together, including the Philippe Faucon triptych. In Prides, I was 17 and it was my first real cinema experience. He gave me this first role and Emmanuelle played my mother. She was wonderful…
In the film, you are a little ugly, very self-conscious, and vaguely lost… How did you approach this role which seems like a counter-job?
Like the hero: I closed my eyes for seven weeks. In fact, the first days, we worked a little on the body, the mannerisms, the physicality of the character. And then afterward, it was instinctive. I trusted Jérémie. I relied a lot on his particularly relevant, funny and sometimes acerbic writing.
The film belongs to an atypical comedy genre, with a lot of change of pace and tone.
Yes, and that’s what I liked. I understood that from the script, and on the set, Jérémie took directing options that I found daring. He could favor silent reverse shots, or let certain scenes last… I love his editor who has a very strong comedic instinct. I had complete confidence in them. That said, to be completely honest, when filming got closer, I found myself wondering what I was doing! I was a little freaked out beforehand, during the previous two weeks, but then I put blinders on, I didn’t think about anything anymore and I sent everything.
Concretely, how did you approach the role of Paul?
I always try to remove the psychological side of the characters and I often use animal metaphors. Usually I do this in my corner, but here I talked about it with Jérémie. For Paul, I thought of the giraffe. The hold of the neck, the slowness of the gaze and this somewhat stupid bovine fixity. He is a calm and agitated guy at the same time and the giraffe has that. Afterwards we did rehearsals at Jérémie’s house, in his apartment, to find the approach, to find the level of play, to control and reduce. We developed a good method: for each sequence, I did three takes with increasingly pronounced levels of comedy. The first take was almost unacted – a bit like I do on dramas where things come the way I feel them. I was playing the moment. Little neck, very few tics. For the second take I proposed what I imagined the role to be. And in the third I blew everything up. Given the work of Jeremie and his editor, I knew that all of this would be useful to them in editing and that they could adjust it in post-production. It was real surgical work.
The film has an extraordinarily loose and at the same time very precise side.
Jeremie doesn’t arrive on set with his hands in his pockets. He had the film in his head and, at home, there were drawings everywhere, which concretized all the ideas we had had. It was a very precise artistic direction. The setting was very elaborate, very elaborate, but inside the scenes, once we had established the comedic tone, it was very free.
We are very far from your roles Lost illusions or Summer 85. What interested you about this role?
All actors have a goal. There are those who want to make entries, those who want to go to Cannes every year and those who want to make films that will make them proud. The thing that funs me the most is exploring various worlds, meeting different people and opening myself up to new ideas. For example, I would really like to make a musical, or a horror film. Jérémie arrived just when I was looking for that, something different.
This is consistent with the impression we have had since the beginning of the festival: a new generation of authors and actors are bursting at the seams of French comedy. Jérémie filmed episodes of Parliament and Xavier Lacaille was present at the start of the festival for Bis Repetita…
It’s funny because Xavier came on set. There was a scene that was cut because it broke the rhythm… We started off in an improvisation that didn’t end up working. But there is a logical link between Samy’s role in Parliament and Paul in this film. I see the energy you’re talking about, and I need precisely this energy, the naivety of these young directors to nourish me!
