Among the many people who make up the cast of “Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom”, are Philippe and Marcel Canet. Consider Guillaume’s father and son. Did you spot them in the movie?
In the name of father and son. This was Guillaume Canet’s credo when he assigned two small roles in his Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Empire to Philippe and Marcel Canet.
After having directed him in Mon idole and Tell no one, this is the third time that Guillaume Canet has directed his father Philippe, also seen in Jappeloup, a drama written and carried by his son. And this time he inherits the role of Agecanonix, dean of the Gallic village played by Sim in the films of 1999 and 2008.
Absent from Au Service de Sa Majesté like the vast majority of the inhabitants of the village (including Panoramix), he is back in the cinema at the height of his 93 years. What asked its interpreter to go through the box “makeup”in order to be aged and to resemble his model.
Pathé Distribution Philippe Canet in Agecanonix
If Philippe Canet appears very little in the feature film, the role of Marcel is even shorter, since he embodies young Asterix in the flashback which tells how Obélix fell into the magic potion when he was little. A choice whose logic can be understood, insofar as Guillaume himself interprets the little mustachioed Gaul in the film he is making.
“I wanted to finally make a film that my two children could see”said Guillaume Canet in an interview given to JDD in 2021. “Asterix is my relationship with my father. He had a lot of albums, I read them. Today, it’s my son who reads them and appreciates them.”
The Middle Kingdom therefore allowed him to bring the two together in one of his projects and around this common passion. And note that, in this same flashback, Obélix is played by Gabin Jouillerot, seen recently in L’École est à nous alongside his father Damien, revealed as the son of Gérard Jugnot in Monsieur Batignole and who held one of the main roles. from Simon Astier’s Visitors series last year.