The actor plays Novak Lisica in the TF1 series Aims for the heart, broadcast on TF1 on Thursdays at 9:10 p.m., an ex-lawyer who has become a police commissioner who finds, on taking up his new duties, his childhood sweetheart, Captain Julia School.
Novak, whom you camp on screen, is difficult to pin down. Did you like it when you were offered this role?
Lannick Gautry: It makes me happy to hear that, it’s the best compliment you can give me. We just wanted Novak to be sincere, touching and annoying all at the same time. When I was offered Aim for the heart, I said to myself: “Another cop…” But when I read the script, I was surprised. I found that everything was well written and put together.
Over time, you are offered characters that are more and more ambivalent, even downright detestable. Don’t you feel like you’ve improved in your acting profession over the years?
Yes, the older I get, the more of a bastard I am. (Laughs.) Yet I haven’t changed, I’m still the same! But everyone seems to picture me as a murderer or a rapist right now. I quite like it because what we remember from great actors, like Bruno Ganz who plays Hitler in The fall Where Marlon Brando and his Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, it’s usually that kind of roles.
Claire Keim explained that in some ways, filming felt like a showdown, because you didn’t have the same expectations…
I don’t necessarily agree with his perception of things, knowing that the only master on board is Vincent Jamain, the director, and that I would never have allowed myself to tell Claire how to act. But this antagonism is part of the story and one can perhaps think that it has slightly exceeded the roles…
Among the popular actors, you are certainly one of the most discreet. Why do we find this allergy to the star system in you?
It’s not an allergy. Simply, I’m not cheating, I live in the countryside in a village of thirty-four inhabitants. But I am not criticizing the way of life of my sisters and colleagues; everyone is happy in their own way.
Does this lack of taste for light come from your origins, you who are the son of oyster farmers living on the island of Oléron?
I think it comes not from my upbringing but from my life. I’m good with real people, with whom I never talk about my job.
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