Laurent Lafitte remembers his Model Class years

During his Masterclass at Séries Mania, the César-nominated actor talks about his beginnings on TV, in sitcoms, and why he left the one worn by Vanessa Demouy, in 1993, without looking back…

30 years before being Tapie for Netflix, Laurent Lafitte made his debut on French TV in a few sitcoms, notably Model class, big success of 1992, on M6. The member of the Comédie Française played Juan in around forty episodes.

“The ideal was to make an American-style sitcom.”remembered Laurent Lafitte, yesterday in Lille, during his Masterclass for Séries Mania (to watch again here). “It was a time when AB did an episode of First Kisses (in which he also made an appearance, Editor's note) in 24 hours… In Mannequin Class, we had two days to make an episode! Honestly it was comfortable (laughs).”

In front of a packed Lille room, whoever is playing today Molière in the cinema and Cyrano on stage talks about why he left the show at the time, and why it probably saved his career!

“I stopped at the end of the first season, because I was like, Wow! What's going on? What am I doing in this? I was afraid that it locks me into a type of role. That's why I left straight away. It was a huge hit at the time and I told myself that if I stayed, I was going to be stuck there- in. Besides, even having only had a supporting role, for a single season, I had difficulty working again after Classe mannequin. I was right to leave.”

Laurent Lafitte confides that even his mother, at the time, was convinced that he had just been fired: “She couldn't believe I chose to leave. She told me: 'You earn 6,000 francs a day, you have work, it's not normal for you to stop like that!' And I had to explain to her: 'Mom, that doesn't correspond to what I want to do.' But hey, I myself didn't really know what I was going to do afterwards. But at that age, we don't care…“

Above all, Laurent Lafitte confesses to having never doubted his ability to establish himself in this environment, which encouraged him not to stay in Model class : “I never had imposter syndrome. I always felt like an actor, legitimate and I was always convinced that my place was there.“