Just arrived in “Here everything begins”, Maya, who grew up in a home with Salomé and Léonard, will join the summer internship at the Auguste Armand Institute and will get closer to Ethan. Alexandra Favalli tells us all about this new character.
As soon as Nicolas Anselmo and Mikaël Mittelstadt left, the screenwriters of Here it all begins wasted no time in introducing a little new blood into the series.
As the double wedding, celebrated on Friday, turned the page on three years of “Greliott’s” love story, and a whole new plot centered on the Armand clan and an unexpected new secret from Auguste comes to begin, viewers of the TF1 culinary soap opera met two new young aspiring chefs: Léonard (Thomas Vilan, who introduced us to his solar character) and Maya (Alexandra Favalli), brother and sister at heart of Salomé (Aurelie Pons).
Determined to reconnect with her past and make up for her mistakes, Salomé reconnected with her two best childhood friends, with whom she grew up in a foster home. With a very specific idea in mind: to offer them to join the summer course at the Auguste Armand Institute, which she is leading this year.
Maya, who has not forgiven Salomé for having let her down several years ago when she met Louis, will she agree to give up and give a second luck to his dear sister? Will she let herself be convinced to participate in the summer camp? And who could she connect with at the institute, beyond Salomé and Leonardo?
Alexandra Favalli, met a few days ago on the set of Here it all begins, tells us all about this new character who will find a place at the Auguste Armand institute over the summer.
AlloCiné: Who is Maya, whom viewers of Here it all begins will discover this week?
Alexandra Favalli : Maya is a young girl who has gone through a lot of hardships, since she grew up in a foster home. She has a strong character and she is determined to take her revenge on life. She wants to take charge of her life, move forward and succeed.
How does she reappear in Salomé’s life?
When we meet Maya, she is very angry with Salomé, who had promised to keep in touch after leaving home and did not keep her promise. The reunion is therefore not easy because Maya does not appreciate the way things ended between them.
There’s going to be quite a stir, it’s not at all smooth between Maya and Salomé. Once again, Maya has a strong character, we realize it right away. But Salomé will succeed in convincing Maya to follow the institute’s summer course, even though she didn’t want to at first. And it will turn out to be a very good experience for Maya, so Salomé was right to insist.
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Will the tensions between Maya and Salomé last all summer, or even beyond, or will the institute’s summer internship allow them to get closer?
I don’t know, you’ll have to watch the series to find out (laughs). What is certain is that at some point Maya will have to give up, because Salomé is her sister at heart and because she loves her deeply.
What is Maya’s relationship to cooking? Is she one of the naturally gifted students of the summer camp or does she still have things to learn?
Maya still has a lot to learn in the kitchen, even if it’s a real passion for her. She cooked a lot when she was at home, but with means and techniques that were a bit shabby. When she arrives at the institute for the summer internship, she finds it difficult to recover because the departure of Salomé, a few years earlier, has created a kind of trauma in her vis-à-vis the kitchen. .
During the summer internship, Maya will open up to cooking thanks to Ethan. What effect will it have on her?
Ethan (Rik Kleve) is a sweet and kind boy. And above all patient. And you should know that patience is not at all Maya’s strong point. So, thanks to his patience and thanks to his advice, Ethan will help Maya get back into the swing of things and regain a taste for cooking.
Should we expect a romantic rapprochement between them?
A rapprochement, that’s for sure. A love affair, I don’t know. In any case, they form a good pair in the kitchen, which will sparkle this summer. Their two characters make it match good in the kitchen. They will really help each other, since Ethan will also have a little problem this summer. So Maya will also pull him up.
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How did you experience your first day of filming on Here it all begins?
My first day on set was total excitement. I was jumping everywhere. I thought I was extremely stressed, and finally not at all. I was so happy to be there, so excited to discover everything. But I think the team quickly got tired of me (laughs). I was jumping around, I was talking so loud. I really think they said to each other “It’s going to be long there. It’s going to be long with her” (laughs).
How is the work going with Aurélie Pons, Thomas Vilan, Rik Kleve and all the others?
We often hear about a “big family” side on Here it all begins, and that’s really it. We were welcomed, Thomas Vilan and I, like little brothers and sisters, the new kids. They put us at ease straight away which was great.
Gradually, they become friends. We spend our time with them. We work of course, but our work is still very cool. We laugh a lot and we get along well with everyone. It must be said that it’s hard not to get along with people here, the atmosphere is so good that it’s rare to find someone in a bad mood on set.
Was the alchemy required by the very strong relationship that exists between Salomé, Léonard and Maya therefore easy to create on the set?
Where it was easy was that Aurélie played our big sister at heart. And when we arrived, Thomas and I, she really acted, perhaps in spite of herself, like our big sister. She took us under her wing, she reassured us about many things, she gave us advice. So, yes, it was easy to create this bond with her since she was completely open, she welcomed us with open arms, as if we were really her little brothers and sisters at heart.
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What memories do you have of your hearing? Did you audition right away for the role of Maya, or did you try out for several characters?
I tried out for other roles, including roles on Tomorrow Belongs to Us. But it didn’t work, whereas Maya, she stuck to my skin quite well from the start. It was easier, more obvious.
And I remember my first audition very well, yes. I was coming back from vacation and I went to this casting in a rather special state of mind (laughs). Unlike my previous castings, I went there saying to myself “Anyway, I’m never taken. There, I have nothing to lose so I’m going all out”. I was prepared but I was not stressed at all compared to the other castings. I was really thinking “I have already had 50 refusals, this will only be the 51st”. And I think that helped me in the end, to go there completely relaxed. I knew my text like the back of my hand and, once again, as Maya sticks to my skin, it worked.
Can you tell us about your background in a few sentences?
Before Here it all begins, I had a completely different life. I did a cinema license in college and, besides that, I was a supervisor in a high school, it was my student job and it was very cool. But I didn’t really hesitate to leave this job, to choose between Here it all begins and my old life (laughs).
Before landing the role of Maya, I went through a lot of castings, because my goal was really to be able to join a project like this. I did a few shoots, a few short films, a few pretty cool silhouette roles, but that had nothing to do with Here it all begins, which gave me my first recurring role on television.
Was cooking your thing before playing in the series?
No, cooking is not my thing at all (laughs). Everyone knows it here, I don’t cook, but not at all. I don’t like to cook at all, I rarely cook. So it’s special to play in this series and spend my time in the kitchen because it’s a room that I don’t know (laughs). But ultimately it’s quite nice to play something that I don’t do at all in real life.