The Animal Kingdom: Paul Kircher, on his way to a Caesar?

Revealed a year ago by Christophe Honoré’s Le Lycéen, his composition as a young man in full metamorphosis impresses in Thomas Cailley’s film. Portrait.

Here is a boy who puts into PLS the chorus of haters seeing in every “son of” or “daughter of” a talented person. Because it is very presumptuous that one of these head-chopping Robespierres who will take the floor to claim that Paul Kircherthe son of actors Jérôme Kircher and Irène Jacob (and brother of Samuel, revealed by Last summer by Catherine Breillat, in a role initially planned for him, before the long time of financing meant that he was too old to play it!) lacks talent. And it only took two films – The High School Student And The Animal Kingdom – to get everyone to agree.

In his younger years, however, he did not imagine himself as an actor, aware with the example of his parents before his eyes that this profession is not a long, quiet river and can prove to be a source of numerous frustrations. He then saw himself as more of a rocker, took singing lessons, performed with a group in bars, covering rap hits by Booba or Aya Nakamura in guitar-voice mode. Before the taste for the game caught up with the one who, as a kid, loved to clown around with the family and make those close to him squirm with laughter.

He was only 17 years old and still in his senior year when he landed his very first role on the big screen in the teen movie Did you fish? : a teenager in love with a classmate who is all the more inaccessible because she is already in a relationship with the handsome guy from college. And this is thanks to casting director David Bertrand who, after discovering him during an audition for a teen series (where he did not get the role), wanted to present him to director Adeline Picault.

Paul Kircher experiences this shoot without thinking about a possible aftermath. He just goes there to have fun, to have an experience.

But Grégory Weill, the agent of Léa Seydoux and Louis Garrel, spots him. And he, once he finished his baccalaureate, began to get bored studying economics and geography at university. This is where things will accelerate. He began to do more and more auditions, took theater courses with Jordan Beswick at the Manufacture des Abbesses and watched more and more films, a cinephile impulse notably triggered by The night belongs to us by James Gray, At the end of the race by Sidney Lumet, Arizona dream by Emir Kusturica and the cinema of Gus vant Sant.

And then comes the casting of High school student by Christophe Honoré. To find the interpreter of Lucas Ronis, a 17-year-old teenager hit hard by the death of his father and flirting with the abyss to try as best he can to (re)construct himself, the director of Love songs auditioned more than 300 candidates but it was he who stood out from the crowd. “ I didn’t have a physique in mind », explained the filmmaker when the film was released, “ I just knew that the role was difficult due to its magnitude and that I had to find someone capable of taking on both scenes of a certain gravity and at the same time more everyday, light, graceful scenes. And Paul has this ability. He is an actor with overwhelming sensitivity. I feel privileged to have filmed him when he was barely 20 years old and he still carried within him expressions from childhood.. »

With this film, Paul Kircher reaches a milestone. Critically acclaimed, he received a nomination for the César for Most Promising Act, which Bastien Bouillon won for The Night of the 12th.

“ I don’t know if cinema will live up to what cinema can offer. » confided Christophe Honoré. Thanks to Thomas Cailley, The Animal Kingdom wasted no time in providing proof that yes. A long, very long-term project since Paul Kircher had even landed this role of a 16-year-old teenager affected by the wave of mutations transforming certain humans into animals even before Christophe Honoré hired him on The High School Studentonce again at the end of a contested casting, with more than a hundred candidates in the running!

“ He exudes something strong and clumsy at the same time which immediately seduced me “, explains Cailley. “ He also has unsuspected resources. He can give the impression of not knowing where he is going, of being floating, while a groundswell carries him, powerful and calm. In fact, Paul is not aware of his power. We feel that something is bubbling within him, an indomitable energy, a wild side. » Which is precisely what drives the character he plays on screen. Without this composition being innate.

In Cannes, last May, during the presentation of Animal Kingdom at the opening of the Un Certain Regard section, Paul Kircher greedily detailed the entire working process which led to the breathtaking result that we discover on the screen.

“ With Thomas, one of the central questions was how to bring this animal transformation to the screen. It went through films that he asked me to see : Fly by David Cronenberg in the lead But also through the meeting with a choreographer Stéphanie Chêne, thanks to whom I was able to explore all bodily feelings in advance, which gave me keys throughout the filming. » Without obviously counting the complicity with Romain Duris who plays his father and with whom he shares the same joyful and childish laugh.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM: A STUNNING MASTERPIECE (REVIEW)

Since then, the one we also saw in 2022 in Little lesson in love by Eve Deboise, has found her way back to the plateaus. He has just finished filming Their children after themthe adaptation of the Prix Goncourt 2018 by Nicolas Mathieu by the Boukherma brothers (teddy, The Year of the Shark) alongside Gilles Lellouche and Ludivine Sagnier in particular. This will be released in theaters on September 18, 2024. But until then, there is a good chance that we will find Paul Kircher in the theater and even on the stage of the Olympia next February. Not to give a concert there but as a candidate for a possible César of revelation, undoubtedly facing his little brother Samuel. A duo-duel never seen before in the history of this category. Enough to make the slayers of the sons and daughters of. And for that alone, we can’t wait!