“Me, I was eating him with my eyes”: in 1973, Gérard Darmon was filming opposite this comedy genius

Since 1973, spectators who (re)see The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob each time they are rebroadcast on the small screen have inevitably noticed the discreet presence of a certain Gérard Darmon opposite Louis de Funès.

In one of his first roles on screen, he plays a henchman and appears in the famous scene of the vats of chewing gum alongside the sacred monster of French comedy.

On the occasion of the release of L’Heureuse Electe, where he plays opposite Camille Lellouche, his co-finalist in LOL: who laughs comes out!, the actor spoke to AlloCiné as part of our new format Big Screenfilmed in the Infinite room of the Le Grand Rex cinema. He returns to this memorable cinema memory in the video above.

“At 18, 19 years old, I did extra work, of course. To get a little money, to simply eat. I did all the levels of cinema, all of them. And really, I’m proud of it I was very eager to see the stars of the time. I saw Bourvil, I saw Belmondo, I saw de Funès obviously, in Rabbi Jacob. closer but I wasn’t even an actor yet”.

He was absolutely charming. And distant.

“We both had eye pain. The cornea was detached and everything (an ingredient present in fake chewing gum – pancake batter – touched the eyes of Gérard Darmon and Louis de Funès, Editor’s note). We had the same eye doctor. So, instead of lasting three days, my little appearance lasted almost two weeks. So, we had time… We put drops in each other’s eyes. He was absolutely charming. And distant”.

These twelve days of filming were a year of lessons.

“I was staring at him with my eyes. Besides, now, I know the quality of a look and when we know that when someone looks at us from that side, we see them 200 meters away. And there, I was fascinated by this kind of machine. I wanted to see how it worked. These twelve days of filming were a year of lessons. , I had this chance”.

I wasn’t thinking about cinema at all.

“Afterwards I forgot everything, I only did theater. I started doing café theater with Jean-Michel Rive. I wanted to be a trouper, I wanted to do theater. I I was only trained for that. I didn’t think about cinema at all. I didn’t know anyone and all the well-meaning people told me that to break through, I had to know people. to the wind with my faith”.

The Happy One, currently in cinemas

To extract money from his parents, Benoît asks a friend to pose as his future wife during a family trip to Morocco. But when the latter withdraws on the day of departure, he has no choice but to offer the role of his fake fiancée… to Fiona, his Uber driver!

The young woman, with an impulsive and unfiltered temperament, stands out in Benoît’s bourgeois family. Between Fiona’s outspokenness and repeated blunders, Benoît will have a hard time convincing his parents that he has found the lucky one…