Raphaël Quenard is freewheeling in the making of Junkyard Dog

“In this film, there are drugs, sex and guns. So it’s a good film”.

Nominated for the César for Best First Film, Dog of the breakagedirected by Jean-Baptiste Durand found Raphaël Quenard in one of his first major roles, giving him a nomination for the César for Most Promising Actor. The making of the film is available in full and we discover the phenomenon Quenard behind the scenes. “Once someone told me: there is no good film if there are no drugs, sex and weapons. In this film, there are drugs, sex and guns. So it’s a good movie”, affirms the actor bluntly.

Dog of the breakage was born from a desire to represent a certain French population, considered under-represented by Jean-Baptiste Durand : “I grew up in these small villages and at the time when I was a young villager, I felt represented when I saw films from the suburbs, from the city, but it was strange because I had never put feet in a city of my life”, explains the filmmaker.

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“When I saw films about villages, I had the impression that they weren’t us at all. I had this feeling that there was a void of representation”, he analyzes. The director has a very physical presence on set, preferring to be active in all positions rather than sitting behind the monitor: “I have a fairly physical relationship with filming, I’m there, I move around a little, I rarely stay behind the combo. I like being almost behind the camera, even being able to touch the actors while they play. It’s part of this almost plastic sensation of being able to touch the material”.

Indeed, before cinema, his first relationship with art was through drawing and the visual arts. Jean-Baptiste Durand entered the Beaux-Arts and immediately felt “a desire, a need that I had to make drawings, paintings of my friends, portraits of gangs, of these village youth.” This physicality is fully embodied by Raphaël Quenard, a true revelation of the year. In the making of, the actor is so full of energy that Jean-Baptiste Durand bet ten euros that he won’t be able to keep quiet during the shot.

What follows is a montage of all the lunarest punchlines of Quenard during makeup, between two takes, during the break, always a crazy story in his bag. The end of filming is full of emotions, Anthony Bajon embracing Raphaël Quenard. All we have to do is wait for the Caesars ceremony to know the rest of the fate of Dog of the breakage.

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