TF1 is ramping up this year on the fiction side with films and series that are really worth a watch. Panda with Julien Doré, Master Crimes with Muriel Robin, and more recently Miss Holmes with Lola Dewaere and Tom Villa have fascinated millions of viewers. And we bet on the same success for Attraction, a Belgian series awarded an award at the La Rochelle Fiction Festival, broadcast this Thursday, May 2 on the front page, at 9 p.m. Lannick Gautry, seen in Aim for the heart, plays the role of Fred, a loving family father, visibly madly in love with his wife Agathe… Until the day when the varnish cracks and Fred shows his true face, that of a lawless serial killer . Lannick Gautry delivers a perfect and disturbing score in the skin of this man, the incarnation of absolute evil. Interview.
Did you immediately agree to play in Attraction ?
Yes ! The storyline is so gripping. We wonder how Agathe will manage to escape from the clutches of this madman. It was very interesting to play this type of character that I had never approached before.
Did you have any fear? Because Fred is truly monstrous…
He is monstrous in his actions but he is not monstrous in his everyday life. It is completely undetectable. I didn’t have to play a psychopath but put myself in the shoes of a good father in all respects. The difficulty was there because there is a real gap between the image he projects and the murders he commits.
Fred’s behavior evolves throughout the episodes of the series while his wife Agathe begins to have doubts. How did you make this switch?
There was no question of playing the bad guy. It was necessary to be disturbing throughout the series, and to balance everything well. If we start filming by saying “he’s a bad guy, I’m going to frown and I’m going to speak loudly”, that doesn’t last six episodes! The character is especially frightening through the eyes of the person he frightens.
So Laura Sepul’s acting (editor’s note: the actress who plays Agathe) carried you along?
Yes, she’s really great. I was amazed when I saw the result. Bravo to her!
You share particularly violent scenes with her, notably those where Fred physically attacks Agathe. How did it go on set?
I apologized at the beginning of each scene. Everything was very mechanized. We were rehearsing and I said to him: “Here I’m going to have to grab your hair and drag you to another room.” But in reality, I was just holding her hair and she was the one clinging to my arm.
Did you manage to understand Fred’s psychology?
At first, I told myself that I had to put myself in his place but it was impossible! I have read up on the killers who do this and they have no empathy, they are completely insensitive to people’s distress and pain, even when they beg them. It doesn’t strike any chords in them.
What is the origin of this violence?
His mother’s suicide attempt. There is a kind of post-traumatic shock because he was not able to talk about it. He had a close encounter with death when he was a child and then wanted to contact it again. He starts by killing animals and then it goes downhill.
In the series, we also see that Fred has a feeling of total impunity… How do you explain it?
He tells himself that life is only made up of predators and prey and he chooses to be a predator because he no longer wants to suffer. He really thinks that the world is like this and that everyone must adapt.
How did you experience filming?
It was quite a lonely shoot because we were in Belgium and my whole family lives in Brittany. I wasn’t able to see my loved ones, which ultimately helped put me in a bubble. But I don’t usually take work home and I’m not the type to obsess over a character. Fortunately because it would have been complicated with Fred! (Laughs)