Daniel Auteuil: “This job has made me happy all my life”
As Un silence comes out where he is once again masterful as a perverse and manipulative lawyer, the one who is teeming with projects and desires takes stock of his career in cinema and music
How do you react when Joachim Lafosse offers you to play this role of lawyer caught up in his pedophile acts, which until then had been hidden in A silence ?
Daniel Auteuil : There are several things. First of all, I have in mind what kind of “doctor” this Joachim Lafosse is. The Intranquilles allows us to understand that his job is to show us the way in which a seemingly ordinary family will break down. And even if the reason is obviously different in A silence, the logic remains the same. Marivaux studied loving hearts under the microscope, Joachim studies them, their malformations. There is a psychoanalytic relationship that interests me in his work. He also has a talent for expressing… the unsaid characters. In this case, what touched me and greatly impressed and upset me here was the wife of this lawyer imprisoned in this silence. And by accepting the role of her husband, the villain of the story, I decided to be his lawyer in a way. What’s more, in a story inspired by real events (the case of Victor Hissel, former lawyer for families of victims of Marc Dutroux, indicted for possession of child pornography images and sentenced to 10 months in prison, stabbed several times and seriously injured by his son who could not stand that his father, symbol of the fight against sexual violence in Belgium, himself had pedophile inclinations, Editor’s note).
How exactly do you approach this role?
I take the real facts into account but from there, not knowing these protagonists directly, I invent stories that are not theirs. There, I said to myself that this father, by agreeing as a lawyer to defend the victims of the greatest pedophile the earth has known, had the feeling of cleansing himself of his own past actions. I realized very quickly that he was a manipulator, a monster who is not really in denial but has the feeling of having paid. To say that all of this is based on a true story is as awful as it is dizzying! This is also the reason why I really like the character of the girl played by Jeanne Cherhal. She represents the youth today who dare to speak and break the silence. Sometimes for certain roles, the situation seems unimaginable. And I like films where there are things that I don’t understand. For A silence, for example, I could not imagine the crimes of this lawyer, I started with the idea of lying because deep down it is what is closest to me. Because there is a whole palette behind this word. Emmanuelle Béart recently made a remarkable documentary where she described finding herself in this same type of silence. I will say that it is linked to centuries of patriarchy. And when we talk to young people who are offended by it today, we apologize for not having been offended by it ourselves before.
It is also, because of the horror of these acts and his behavior, a big role…
Obviously ! And I actually saw this more prosaic opportunity to be able to find a great role because basically… there is nothing to play: you have to take everything away!
A SILENCE: LAFOSSE BRILLIANTLY SCRUTES THE DARKNESS OF THE HUMAN SOUL (CRITIQUE)
How do you experience filming in the shoes of such a character? Can you keep it from getting to you?
For me, here, it is Emmanuelle Devos who has the most difficult part. But it’s true that when you find yourself in the hotel all alone in the evening, it can be overwhelming. My luck is to have music! It saves me. The mind wanders elsewhere instinctively.
Has music, your two albums and your concerts, also changed the way you experience your profession as an actor?
Regarding this job, but it is linked to age, I no longer race with others, I am no longer in competition. I no longer have to prove things to anyone but myself and it’s a great liberation. It’s like when you win a prize at Cannes, you can come back relaxed in the following years! (laughs) I no longer worry about image and career. People have always known that I wander around everywhere and have understood that that won’t change. I am lucky to have acquired this freedom that I dreamed of as a young actor. That of people I admired like Marcello Mastroianni or Michel Serrault. While there are several moments in an acting career, where you want everything and where you can’t have everything because it doesn’t just depend on you. I count my luck in being here again… and with success. When people talk to me about the 74 years I’m going to be, I don’t know who this old man is in the reflection of my ice cream. I have an exacerbated appetite for life but not frenetic. This desire to discover, to read, to meet and to meet.
This is also what makes you realize again (Thread which will be released on September 4), six years later In love with my wife ?
Actually, I understood something. Before, I directed for the sake of directing. There, I really had to have something to say. You will tell me if you like it because you have not been kind to my previous creations (laughs) but I think it is the first time that I really had something to say and the first time also that I managed to say it with such fluidity in images. I remember Michel Piccoli, another model, who also made films late in life. All this makes me very happy
And will music continue to take up so much space?
I have four concert dates at the Théâtre de L’Ouvre, in Paris, from January 18 to 21, followed by a tour in France and then in April in Canada. But I also have new desires for cinema. A few years ago I wrote a book of short stories, He was stupid in the chapel!, the story of a little boy in the world of opera. And I’m thinking of bringing it to the screen. This job has made me happy all my life. Sometimes with pain and failure, these tomorrows where no one is waiting for you. But it never lasted. And when I look back, all those years seemed like they lasted barely 10 minutes.
A silence. By Joachim Lafosse. With Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Devos, Jeanne Cherhal… Duration: 1h39. Released January 10, 2024
