Asterix and Obelix against Caesar: Christian Clavier frightened on the set

When Claude Zidi launches the crazy bet to adapt the adventures of Asterix and Obelix to the cinema, he manages to convince Albert Uderzo with his script. Casting begins, then filming. While he had initially set his sights on Daniel Auteuil to play the little mustachioed Gaul, the director finds himself forced to choose a new actor. In the columns of First, on August 9, 2021, he remembers: “I did 5-minute costume trials with him, in a Gallic hut, which were wonderful. Auteuil was impeccable and Depardieu priceless. For this scene, we had cooked a three-kilo lamb and Gérard devoured it for the takes! Daniel Auteuil then canceled, because he had signed for another film in Quebec. Christian Clavier replaced him”. A change of main role that works, since the actor of Splendid brilliantly portrays the character of Asterix. However, filming has not always been the easiest for him.

A very animal production

In Claude Zizi’s vision come true, the film features a notable human cast, but also a plethora of real wildlife. Monday, February 13, 2023 at 9:10 p.m., TF1 diffuse Asterix and Obelix versus Caesar, where crocodiles, tarantulas, snakes and other ferocious beasts appear. With our colleagues from FirstClaude Zidi remembers that “Crocodiles, which do as they please, are impossible to control”. “But the most dangerous animals were the ticks! We were turning in the grass all day and, in the evening, we were devoured by these critters”, he adds. On the board, there are also lions. And as he entrusted it to TV 7 Days in August 2015, they were not easy either. “The male was in heat: every time he heard his female roar, he would go crazy and try to leave the set. We had to shoot the scenes with five-meter-high fences, like in a circus”, explains Claude Zidi. Another challenge: the elephants.

Claude Zidi: “How lucky, this Christian!”

In front of his troupe of actors, extras and wildlife, the director had to improvise general of the armies. “High perched, I shouted into a megaphone to give orders. To assist me in this task, I recruited Michel Lepoix, a former police officer specializing in troop movements in demonstrations: he coordinated the extras massed over 50 m2 between pickets”, he says. But when it came to giving directions to 4,000 kg mammals, the task became more complicated. “The elephants only understood German, the language of their trainer”, he reveals. And they weren’t necessarily the most docile. Near TV 7 Days, Claude Zidi recounts the misadventure that scared Christian Clavier. This last “was to be lifted by the trunk of an elephant. Feeling badly about the outcome of this risky scene, he wanted to be doubled”explains the director. “Good idea: the pachyderm dropped the stuntman five feet off the ground and the professional injured his head. How lucky, this Christian!”, he amused himself. Despite this incident, as well as Gérard Depardieu’s accident during filming, the actor who took over the costume of Asterix for the version by Alain Chabat in 2002 had a lot of fun. In 2018, he tweeted a photo of him in Gallic costume with, in caption: “Very good memories of Asterix And Obelix and a wonderful collaboration with Gérard who saved me from an elephant”.

>>> See Christian Clavier’s tweet