Promoting his next film A roll of the dice by Yvan Attal, Guillaume Canet was the guest of the show One-on-one(s) Sunday January 21, 2024. Interviewed for the occasion by Laurie Cholewa, the actor and director looked back at the start of his career, 30 years ago today. A period during which he had, like many apprentice actors, to force destiny somewhat. In search of his first role in the cinema, Guillaume Canet used malice to achieve his ends. “I remember my first role, which was with Jean-Luc Laurenzy. I came back by train from Paris to my parents, on Friday, I left the casting and they told me, ‘We’ll call you back’. It pissed me off.”he relates, before exposing his ruse. “I called the person in charge of casting, around 6 p.m., and I told him: ‘I didn’t want to tell you earlier because I was afraid to tell you, but in fact, I’m booked on these dates for another role, for another film. And so I need to know quickly if you think it’s going to do it, because I need to tell them quickly.’ Even though it absolutely didn’t exist“he still remembers.
A confidence that proved useful
Showing stubbornness, the beginner actor, thanks to this ultimatum, managed to resolve the situation, and subsequently convince the director. “They called me back half an hour later to say, ‘You’ve got the role’”he still remembers. “I had convinced myself so much that I had another role that, when I hung up, I said to myself: ‘Now we have to call the others back’.” A little lie which allowed Marion Cotillard’s companion to play his very first role in the cinema, Frédéric, in the Hill of a thousand children, released in 1994. Three decades later, at just 50 years old, the now César-winning actor, screenwriter and director has joined the firmament of the greatest actors in French cinema. He has notably appeared in more than sixty feature films.