In the fourth episode of season 4 of “Balthazar”, broadcast this evening at 10 p.m. on TF1, the pathologist played by Tomer Sisley parachutes from a biplane in full flight. Did the actor perform this impressive stunt himself? He answers.
Launched last Thursday on TF1, the new season 4 of Balthazar, which features Constance Labbé in the role of police captain Camille Costes, continues this evening with two new episodes in which viewers will be able to find two former actors from Tomorrow belongs to us, Luna Lou and Cyril Garnier.
And if the first episode of the evening, “In appearance”, focuses on the disappearance of a little girl, kidnapped in the middle of the night from her parents’ home, the second, “Still life”, particularly marks the spirits because of a sequence during which Raphaël Balthazar (Tomer Sisley) parachutes from a biplane he was piloting in order to discreetly enter the mansion of a couple suspected of being involved in a murder case and theft of paintings.
And if the sequence in question is very impressive, it is Tomer Sisley himself who performed this stunt, without any understudy. “I do all my stunts”confessed the actor to our microphone, a little surprised and amused that we can think that a professional stuntman is hiding behind Balthazar’s jump.
“You just stuck a little dagger in my heart there (laughs). I thought it was obvious that there was no stunt double and that it was me jumping off the biplane, but if there’s any doubt it bothers me (laughs). No, of course, it’s me. So far I’ve done all my stunts on the show.”.
The waterfalls at the heart of the series’ DNA
The star of Balthazar, who teased us a sequel to season 4 rich in revelations about his character’s childhood, explains that, from the start, the idea was that the pathologist who speaks to the dead would tend to “burn life at both ends”. And that’s why he had the idea to ask the writers to incorporate many action sequences in the series.
“I was told about the series and especially the character before I read the script. And it was the Balthazar we know: skinned alive, sensitive, melancholy. And who burns life at both ends. And for To illustrate this, the authors had gone on a Balthazar who chained different conquests every night and who drank a lot. And I told them “There are other ways of burning life at both ends”. And I told them in particular gave the example of Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair, whose character took risks and did things for the adrenaline, to feel alive”.
And this is how the series that we know was born, making a little, at the same time, of Tomer Sisley a kind of French Tom Cruise. “This would allow us to see sequences that we are perhaps less used to seeing in France in series. Because we don’t see stunts on French TV that often”adds the interpreter of Balthazar, who seems to take great pleasure in performing the various action sequences of the series.
“And on the other hand, since these are stunts that I do myself, I thought it was an asset for the series. It’s always a plus when it’s the actor who does it himself his stunts. That’s why we talk so much about Tom Cruise in Mission impossible”.
Screenshot/TF1
A stunt inspired by L’As des aces
However, the actor assures that he has his own limits and that he is afraid like everyone else. “I’m not a head-brain (laughs). I’m scared like everyone else. It’s just that I overcome my fear. Of course, when it’s something I’m in control of, it’s more easy. Jumping ten meters in an aribag is something I’ve done a hundred times. I’m going to have a little emotion when I jump, but compared to someone who has never fact, the experience makes it easier for me to go there”.
“But I’m scared like everyone else and I still obviously have limits, which are the limits of calculated risks”continues Tomer Sisley, who explained to us that he had already performed the biplane stunt in episode 4 several years ago as part of a television show.
“The idea is not to drive at 150 km/h in Paris while running through all the red lights hoping that it passes. It’s never that. But on the other hand, when you organize a stunt like that of the biplane , where I jump out of the plane upside down, I’m confident because it’s something I’ve already done for a TV show, where I had to do a Belmondo stunt, in L’As des aces, because it’s one of the few stunts he didn’t do himself”.
It is therefore on the proposal of Tomer Sisley that the production and the screenwriters of Balthazar, led by the creator Clothilde Jamin, incorporated this stunt of jumping in full flight in episode 4 of season 4 broadcast this evening at 10 p.m. on TF1 .