Dany Boon, Kad Merad and Charlotte Gainsbourg tell behind the scenes of the new comedy from the director of Welcome to the Ch’tis.
Dany Boon and Kad Merad, third. The duo, who hit the heights of the box office with Welcome to the Ch’tis (2008) et Superchondria (2014), is reforming for a new comedy, life for realwhich is slated for release this Wednesday.
“Welcome to the Ch’tis, it’s the best gift I’ve been given in my acting career. To find Dany, it’s crazy”, exclaims Kad Merad at the microphone of BFMTV. “We are nine years later (‘Supercondriaque’), but I have the impression that a month has passed!
Dany Boon embodies Tridan Lagache, a naïve 50-year-old boy who has spent his life at Club Med. Overnight, he leaves the vacation club where he was born and flies to Paris, where he hopes to find his great love of youth, Violette.
He stays with Louis (Kad Merad), a half-brother he didn’t know existed. To get rid of this cumbersome guest, Louis begs one of his conquests, Roxane, to pretend to be Violette, whom Tridan thinks he recognizes at first sight…
life for real is the eighth film written and directed by Dany Boon – and his first for the cinema since The Ch’tite family (2018). His previous, 8 Humanity Street (2021), a lockdown comedy, was made especially for Netflix.
Accompanied by his actors Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kad Merad, Dany Boon tells BFMV behind the scenes of his first romantic comedy as a director.
What prompted you to write a romantic comedy?
Dany Boon: I never had the idea of making a romantic comedy. In all my films, I have the feeling that there are love stories.
Kad Merad: But there it takes up space…
Dany Boon: I didn’t realize it. What interested me was finding a good motivation for Tridan to leave the club at 50. It is a strong motivation, love.
These romantic scenes are the most striking of the film.
Kad Merad: That’s nice for me!
Dany Boon: But you are romantic at some point.
Kad Merad: No, I’m watching you loving yourself. My favorite scene is the one where you’re talking in the cafe. It’s super beautiful. There is an incredible chemistry between you. It’s my favorite scene and yet it’s not the funniest. You can also love a comedy because there is emotion in it.
Dany Boon: Emotion brings quality to laughter, and depth.
Another striking scene in the film is the one where Charlotte Gainsbourg jumps on Dany Boon to kiss him passionately…
Dany Boon: It’s my favorite scene, because the whole film takes place there. Kad arrives all powerful with his Machiavellian project. It works because I’m very naive and I believe in it. And all of a sudden, she takes over.
Charlotte Gainsbourg: It was my first day.
Dany Boon: For Charlotte, it was a bit hard to start with that scene.
Charlotte Gainsbourg: Yes, and at the same time, it was good to have a big comedy scene where I didn’t have too many questions to ask myself. It was easy to play, thanks to them. Given their complicity, given the team, I never felt uncomfortable. It was really nice to shoot, and to feel that it made people laugh. Comedy can be uncomfortable if you fall badly.
Dany Boon: It’s my greatest pride in this film, to have managed to make this trio work.
Charlotte Gainsbourg, you contacted Dany Boon directly to play in the film. For what?
Charlotte Gainsbourg: Because I had his number! (laughs) He’s a friend of Yvan (Attal). We had met. I saw his movie, 8 humanity street, and I thought it was stupid not to tell people that we love them, that we want to work with them. It was sincere and I took the liberty of texting him. He replied that it made him happy.
Dany Boon: I was like crazy!
Charlotte Gainsbourg: Afterwards, I learned that he was working on a film and he offered me a role. I couldn’t believe it was so easy.
The other star of the film is a pigeon. How did this idea come about?
Dany Boon: Benny, my mom’s friend, picked up a pigeon from a big box parking lot. He was half dead and he healed him. He taught her to walk again. He sent videos to my mother where we see him walking the pigeon. And finally the pigeon died. The idea comes from there.
Kad Merad: And the pigeon is really an actor!
Dany Boon: The pigeon was trained by Muriel Bec, who takes care of the animals on my films. He was born for filming. She got it used to being in her hands. He was there, happy to be with us. We had a lot of laughs with him.
Kad Merad: He has an agent and everything now. There he is on the next one Pirates of the Caribbean, I believe! (laughs)
Dany Boon: Yeah, but he negotiated a shitty salary, he got screwed!
Dany Boon, your films are often inspired by your background. What is personal to you in La Vie pour vrai?
Dany Boon: My arrival in Paris. And my childhood love. My mother came to the set of The Chti’te family with my CM2 love. I was very embarrassed. My mother was dying of laughter. We were happy to see each other, to say hello. We remembered how we absolutely loved each other in CM2. It’s beautiful when you love each other in those moments. The first love emotions are a chemical thing that is created in the body, but of a force. It’s like a volcanic eruption.
You were talking about your arrival in Paris. Did you feel as out of step as your character?
Dany Boon: Unsuitable. I was naive, candid. I got screwed like Tridan. At one point, I was drawing. There was Paris Boom Boom at the time (a free newspaper which appeared on Mondays in the capital, Editor’s note). There was an ad to sell serigraphs. They gave me a peddler’s card. I stopped by the police: the card was fake. I had to pay a fine that was ten times what I had earned in a month. It was horrible.
Kad Merad, this film marks your reunion with Dany Boon. Does your complicity help you to make the film better, to go further?
Kad Merad: It’s a double-edged sword. I don’t want to disappoint him, because he’s my friend, he offered me an important role. It’s always events, Dany Boon’s films. I have to rise to the occasion. The fact that I know him well puts pressure on me, but allows me to offer him things more easily, and more quickly.
What kind of director is Dany Boon?
Kad Merad: He knows what he wants. He will make you do what he wants. Behind its absolute requirement, there is a lot of freedom and pleasure. It’s a quality in comedy. I love directors who just take you for an actor. Not for a personality.
Dany Boon: This is the worst part: arriving on a set and the director expects you to be funny to save a fragile and not funny scene. It’s atrocious.
What will be your next film? You mentioned a scenario a few years ago about the arrival of 5G…
Dany Boon: It’s true that I had that. I have a whole script. It was about a mayor of a village in a white zone.
Kad Merad: We also had a comedy project on insurance, in Marseille.
Dany Boon: I still have it.
Kad Merad: Maybe we will one day!
