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Gérard Depardieu • Actor

"Living feeling"

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- Gérard Depardieu • “Living feeling”

Surrounded by director Xavier Giannoli, Belgian actress Cécile de France and producers Pierre-Ange Le Pogam (EuropaCorp) and Edouard Weil (Rectangle), Gérard Depardieu spoke to the international press about his preparation for The Singer [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
(see review), selected in official competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

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Cineuropa: It is a surprise to find you in the role of a singer and listen to you sing so many songs.
Gérard Depardieu: These are songs that I know how to sing along to. What’s nice is that my character sings only to make people happy and to get them dancing at these Saturday evening “cabaret parties” that only exist in France, perhaps in Italy as well. This man is neither a star nor a TV star; there are people that become beautiful when they are happy. He’s a genuine character.

How did you avoid caricature and manage to give dignity to this “oldies” singer?
Just by thinking about what I sing in the film. For example, L’anamour by Serge Gainsbourg is actually an attempt to seduce someone. You have to know how to forget yourself. Louis Jouvet used to say, "diction drives feeling". Here, it is songs that drive feeling. Moreover, no singer can sing without sincerity. And it is more difficult to be a second-class singer. But most singers, such as Bruce Springsteen for example, could also be singers of popular songs in bars, ranches, because they quite simply live their adventure as a singer. It is extraordinary how music can make you humble. Singing is delicate art and it is also like acting, especially for men who are often more fragile than actresses (who don’t last as long, with audiences not wanting to see women grow old).

We haven’t seen you for a long time in such a sweet and tender role. What do you think of heightened sentimentalism in The Singer ?
I don’t understand the idea of wanting to avoid sentiment, theatricality, the clown. I love melodramas. And Xavier Giannoli did not shy away from sentiment, nor did he wallow in it. There’s an honesty in showing feelings that are noble and I for one live out my feelings. It’s rare to find topics where all you have to do is “be”, because we cannot act everything, contrary to what many people think. I’ve noticed that films that express a reality, the truth, are always more popular, even if, and it is unfortunate to have to say this, there are few scripts like that.

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