In “Respire”, broadcast this Tuesday evening on M6, the singer Calogero takes his first steps as an actor in the shoes of a music teacher who will help a young teenager regain a taste for life.
In Respire, the new fiction broadcast on M6 this Tuesday, September 12 from 9:10 p.m., Calogero plays Raphaël Delage, a music teacher who will help and support Tessa (Charlie Loiselier), a young teenager victim of school bullying, who will find her taste to life through singing.
It was under the direction of Jérôme Cornuau, who notably produced Les Brigades du Tigre and Fugueuse, that the singer of Weightless will make his acting debut. AlloCiné met him last June to discuss this new adventure with him.
AlloCiné: Respire is your first experience as an actor. What convinced you to accept the role of Raphaël?
Calogero : This is a subject that affects me greatly because I failed at school. I was last in class, and the teachers always told my parents that I would never do anything in my life. Playing a professor is a bit of an irony. That’s life, that’s how it is.
Acting wasn’t necessarily something I had planned for my life. It came to me and I thought about it a lot. Ultimately, what convinced me to accept the role was the fact that Jérôme Cornuau was the director of Respire.
It gave me confidence. He directed The Tiger Brigades, which is a film that I really like, and he also worked on Dissonances. He has a real vision, and he expresses a lot of things with his camera. The subject, mixed with the choice of the director, convinced me to try the experience.
Jean Philippe BALTEL/STUDIOFACTSTORIES/M6
How did you prepare for this role?
Jérôme Cornuau immediately put me in the hands of Karine Nuris (an actress and acting coach, editor’s note), which made me work a lot. I immediately got into the swing of things with talented young actors who were playing alongside me. I was in a world that I didn’t know well, so I had to break down lots of little barriers to be comfortable. I have often gone to see these young actors in order to work with them and to progress.
Was the fact that Respire revolves a lot around music a decisive element in your choice to play in it?
What interested me was that this teacher had a way of teaching his students that was not academic. It’s a bit my vision of music. I think that in music it is very important to learn, but also to have a large part of ignorance. Ignorance indeed allows you to have a much more creative mind.
If, as soon as we start, we immediately learn Beethoven, Bach or Mozart, we can be blocked for the rest of our lives, to the point of no longer being able to create, because we are faced with mountains that seem insurmountable to us. That’s my vision of music.
I also really liked the character. I like that he doesn’t spot Tessa because she sings well. He spots her because she is fragile. He helps him get through it, to hang on to his schooling and the rest of his subjects, not just music. What he sees in her is that she is dropping out. He once had a student who had a problem, and he didn’t see the signs. He doesn’t want it to happen again.
Jean Philippe BALTEL/STUDIOFACTSTORIES/M6
That’s what I liked about the character. Tessa’s story is very important to tell because there are lots of people who are like this. Take the example of mathematics. Just because you’re not good at math doesn’t mean you can’t do something with your life. Math was a stifling subject for me when I was a child. I was stuck.
We persist in learning equations and calculations that we will never do again in our lives, except in certain professions. I think that there are subjects, such as sport, music, history or art history that we should put more emphasis on. For me, it is through art, painting and even cooking that we can help a child who can be violent to channel himself.
Does this first experience as an actor make you want to do it again?
If I meet directors like Jérôme, yes. But otherwise, I’m not going to specifically try to replay the comedy. It’s not a priority. I loved acting but I’m not going to knock on doors to find a new role. I let the universe do its thing like I did with Respire. The film came to me. If a project comes to me and I find it interesting, and it is done with passionate and exciting people, why not!
Watch Respire, a TV film freely adapted from the story of singer Tessae, this Tuesday, September 12 from 9:10 p.m. on M6.