How Serge the Mytho changed Jonathan Cohen’s life

While Sentinelle was released on Friday on Prime Video, the actor tells his story in the latest issue of Première.

Unlikely singer/cop Sentinelwhich he wrote and produced for Prime Video, Jonathan Cohen is the star of back-to-school streaming, carrying this wacky comedy branded with his crazy imprint. A new hit in sight, new viral sequences which will nourish your gifs for many months, after the crazy phenomena of The flameof Torch or LOL who laughs comes out. The 43-year-old actor confirms with Sentinel his current status as a superstar of the French valve, hoping to quickly gain ground in the cinema: he will soon be the leading role of the next Nakache and Toledano, and not only as a joke on duty!

“Jonathan has something of the Italian heroes. With him, everything becomes a little lighter, even when it’s serious. Exactly what we needed to be light on a serious subject” explain Eric Toledano in the latest issue of Première, available on newsstands. Olivier Nakache complete : “Like most actors who come from comedy, he is keen to prove that he can be good in other registers, but that he also has the ability to release a certain melancholy through comedy.”

It must be said that the actor went through the Conservatory, before being a television troublemaker. And his first years in the business were not what he hoped: “I wanted to quit every year!” confides to us Jonathan Cohen. “The difficulty in finding work and the frustration that arose from it. I had the feeling that people thought I was nice, nothing more. I have always been aware that earning a living with this profession was a miracle in itself! But for a long time I had the frustration of not being able to express what I had in me.”

To keep up morale and not sink during these difficult years, the actor explains that he “dissociated“his own person of his profession: “I didn’t want to be this happy guy as soon as he got a casting and at the bottom of the hole when he failed it. It took me a long time. I had to wait 35 years for something to happen. soothes. And it was obviously at the precise moment when I told myself that it was no big deal to stop everything, that something clicked!”

As it happens, Jonathan Cohen reveals to us that his meeting with Kyan Khojandi And Navoin 2011, to make appearances in Briefchanged his life and his destiny as an actor:

“They invited me to Brief Then Blockedwith this character of Serge the Myth. There, it’s as if they saw me and heard me for the first time! That started it all. When Mikhaël Hers hired me to Amandait’s because he is a fan of Serge the Myth. Cédric Kahn for Making of, The same. Strangely, this character allowed me to approach a universe of cinema that I thought inaccessible.”

Aware of the risk associated with Serge, such a monster of comedy, capable of trapping an actor in a single character for his entire career, Cohen explains in stride: “That’s why we stopped after a year. My luck was then to meet Igor Gotesman at the same time, and to continue with the success of the series Family Business (on Netflix).”

Jonathan Cohen knows today what he wants. The comic on duty is about to make the switch to a career as a classic actor. patrick cassirwho led him in First Vacation in 2018, one of his first major film roles, says: “He’s a huge hard worker. And he’s someone who knows very well when a scene is at 70% of its potential. He has a crazy radar and wants nothing less than 100%. And that’s where he’s going to piss you off, improvise and only give you the scene if it’s up to par. (Laughs.) And he’s right.”

The co-director of SentinelDavid Caviglioli, confirms and adds: “He knows almost every version of the script by heart. He could arrive on the set, in the morning, with an old version under his arm, saying to us: ‘I reread it yesterday, there are things to resume in it'”.

Jonathan Cohen knows what he wants. He knows where he is going. And he will be everywhere in the coming months on the big screen. In the Daaaaaali! by Quentin Dupieux, in A difficult year by Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache or in Making of by Cédric Kahn… But that won’t stop him from continuing to make his Serge the Mytho on TV from time to time: season 3 of The flame is already under discussion!

Comments collected by François Léger and Thierry Chèze

Find Jonathan Cohen in the latest issue of Firstcurrently on newsstands