Why Les Vedettes is very different from Max et Léon: the Palmashow explains

Grégoire Ludig and David Marsais tell us about the creation of their two comedies.

After the theatrical success of their first production The Crazy Story of Max and Léon (2016), the team of Palmashow returned in early 2022 with The stars, his second film. A comedy to (re)watch this evening on TF1, followed by Barbaqueby Fabrice Eboué.

Radically different from Max and Leonboth on the story and in the production, The stars is a kind of “second first film” which brings back to the known universe of Palmashow sketches while bringing a higher dimension to their cinema. It is then amusing to compare the two features. Here are the three main differences between the creations of the trio Jonathan Barré-Grégoire Ludig-David Marsais, explained by the two actors and co-writers of the films.

With Les Vedettes, the Palmashow reinvents itself (review)

The characters above all

In The stars, Grégoire Ludig and David Marsais, accompanied by their director Jonathan Barré, wanted to create a relationship completely different from the dynamic of Max and Léon. From now on, the main characters Daniel and Stéphane are not friends, and on the contrary hate each other. They evolve alone, before getting closer, but have their own personality. Something important for the trio, who wanted to work on a new form of friendship.

“This story is that of these two guys who are going to find each other and who are going to have to move forward together, a bit unlike Max and Leon, explained the duo in First in February 2022. We really wanted to flesh out the relationship of the two and how they will move forward together. We said to ourselves that this was the thing we needed to focus on (…)

Which was perhaps the pitfall of The Crazy Story of Max and Léonwhere we had not treated the relationship of the two. In our sketches, we love building our characters, and in Max and Leon we flew over the characters. The duo became characters. Jonathan said he always films them together as one character. In The stars we wanted to differentiate them deeply so that the association of the two would be richer. OI really wanted to work Daniel and Stéphane hard. And in terms of gameplay, it’s much more fun. Just the passage from the Prix à Tout Prix, from the filming of the clip, these are moments of comedy, just for us: we realized that when we laugh at our own jokes, it often works in our faces. The spectators perceive that at one point we were having fun. We had fun in a genuine way and we tried to make it shine through.”

And in aesthetics, it was necessary to construct two different atmospheres: “For Stéphane, we saw him as a bit American, a bit like Greg Kinnear in Little Miss Sunshine, with his polo shirt and pleated pants. When you watch a lot of American comedies, Americans often have this look. And in fact when we built the character we said to ourselves that Stéphane is an American: he lives in the suburbs, he is into extreme consumption, he has lots of gadgets. We wanted to give him the archetype of the guy who thinks he’s an American. And for Daniel we saw rather The Big Lebowski, which was obviously a reference. The living room scene, where he is in a bathrobe and boxers, we totally assume that it is completely inspired by Jeff Bridges’ character in it, that’s obvious. Afterwards, we have this thing with the goat, from the beginning. Just the word goat (laughs) makes us laugh. We put a goatee on him, we put an earring on him…. We even said to ourselves: Daniel has a truck and he is sensitive. He gets into trouble but he’s sensitive. He is violent but he has a love for music. He has a coquettishness (laughs).”

Les Vedettes: “Need to sing”, the crazy clip from the film

Another approach to the actors

As for the actors, the situation has also changed. There where The Crazy Story of Max and Léon continued to highlight favorite actors from Palmashow sketches while bringing a lot of better-known guests to the screen, The stars chose not to hire guests and on the contrary to stick with something simpler.

“There are really great actors in France, and even we are now in the pitfall of wanting to think about better-known actors for our sketches as guests, they explain. For this film, already because it had to be credible and for people to believe in this universe, we were afraid by bringing in an actor with a face that was too well known or too familiar to go beyond that. And what’s more, we wanted to surround ourselves with great actors, like Julien Pestel, Damien Gillard, Gaëlle Lebert… We cast them, we had them rehearse. When you’re a guest, you want to bring something extra, whereas these actors are really at the service of the scenario, and with them you can really have fun. For example Théo Gross, who plays the nephew Bastien, we took a while to cast him, and when we found him we saw that he had the intelligence for the role and once we found the styling and that we felt he had the character we came to see him all the time on set to add things (laughs). And that’s a real comedic pleasure.”

They then explain that this desire to hire more recognized actors is rooted in a feeling of illegitimacy, a sort of cinematic imposter syndrome. How can you be recognized when you’ve made a splash on TV?

A questioning that dominated in Max and Leonbut who found his answer with The stars : “Contrary to Max and Leon where there were really a lot of guests. We were afraid of not feeling legitimate, so we surrounded ourselves with lots of recognized people to have the impression of being “part of the family” somewhere. And so in The stars we really said to ourselves that we had to tell a true story and not take people who risked getting out of the film. Just like Veber’s films are films that we believe in because we are centered on these two characters and there is not a big actor who will interfere a little with this exchange between the two. Hence the importance of the duo’s writing. We had to be strong enough together and not need to surround ourselves with funny names.”

A question of recognition

Finally, the first difference that jumps out at you as soon as the film begins: the world of the film and its plot. While Max and Leon took place in the middle of the Second World War, therefore in a very marked universe with a lot of codes to follow, The stars takes place in our time in a ZAC, on TV sets, in suburban residences. A universe marked by television and the need for recognition, where Max and Léon wanted to be forgotten.

“We really like parody, and therefore televisionthey recognize, but we found it interesting, particularly with Jonathan’s work, to succeed in separating the fiction and TV game side. We had to give it a bit of a pop dimension, which Jonathan did well. And even beyond that, we said to ourselves that if we had something to tell, and what’s more, we laughed about it while writing… I remember with David that the scene of Price at All Prices, it’s the scene that we wrote in one day, we had fun doing it, it was almost a driving force, this sequence of play. The difference between what we do on television, where we directly parodying what we’re doing is we wanted to tell a story of friendship in the film. She was placed in this decorum, because it speaks to us, and we had the need for recognition as a focus for this film. In this way, television lends itself completely to these situations. It’s a subject that speaks to us a lot at the moment, and we wanted to tell that: two guys who are a little on the fringes, who are trying to integrate themselves a little into a system which is pushing more and more for recognition. Today we isolate ourselves more and more in society and we therefore seek recognition through ratings at work, employees of the month, social networks – finding a comment, a good word, to get likes. Everything is noted and judged. We end up eliminating people. In the end it is very violent. What we wanted to tell is really this axis on recognition, with characters who have no perspective and rush headlong into this diktat, to integrate, who will be crushed there, but who will when even end up finding each other. Because ultimately they are the same, and that’s what they were looking for: a social connection.”

The Vedettes trailer, to be seen again this evening on television:

Les Vedettes: “We learned from Quentin Dupieux on Mandibles”