Available on Netflix, Funny features four young comedians who dream of breaking into the world of stand-up. Going on stage, getting naked and making an audience laugh… not an easy exercise for the actors and actresses of the series.
In Funny, they are hilarious. Each in turn and in their own way, when they are on stage, they bring out this part of magic: to provoke laughter. Nezir, Aïssatou, Bling and Apolline have humor in their blood, even if it requires a lot of work. What the series sets out to demonstrate. A good valve, a punchline, it is refined to perfection.
But for the actors and actresses of Funny too, it was necessary to work to put themselves in the shoes of a stand-upper, and to be credible on stage. A separate exercise in the work of an actor and the construction of a character.
On the occasion of the presentation of the series at Séries Mania – which takes place from March 18 to 25 in Lille – the team answered questions from Entertainment TV on the difficulty of these stand-up scenes.
“It was the most complex part. There was an extra layer with the stand-up. We had to find our characters on stage. I was very scared at first“, explained Mariama Gueye, who plays Aissatou, a comedian back on stage after giving birth to her daughter and who is experiencing a meteoric rise thanks to a very indiscreet sketch on the discovery of her husband’s prostate pleasure.
A specific preparation
She explains to our colleagues that she watched videos of confirmed comedians including Gad Elmaleh – who gave Fanny Herrero the idea for the series – Jamel Debbouze, but also the American Ali Wong.
Jean Siuen, meanwhile, preferred not to draw inspiration from anyone in particular. “Bling is a creation. I did not want to work by mimicry. There is no neurotic comedian in France like him“, says the actor.
Elsa Guedj, who plays Apolline, confides in her turn that the small team practiced stand-up in real conditions: “We worked with Shirley Souagnon at the Barbès Comedy Club. We did clandestine sets that we organized for us. We performed as if we were really comedians. We trained there“
A situation that pleased Younès Boucif, the interpreter of Nezir, perhaps a little better prepared for the scene than his comrades because of his status as a rapper. “It was a new exercise which was not obvious but ultimately more exciting than stressful. I liked” he added for his part.
Several stand-up professionals – Shirley Souagnon, Lison Daniel, Fanny Ruwet, Marina Rollman and Jason Brokerss – surrounded the Funny team, from the writing to the training of the actors to make the exercise as believable as possible. Mission successful.