A prodigious actor, from the school of circus and commedia dell’arte, Denis Lavant has become in the cinema the alter ego of Leos Carax on screen, the brilliant anxiety of the latter being thus increased by the overwhelming expressivity and the explosive corporeality of the first. Inaugurated in 1984 with Boy Meets Girlthe association continues on Bad blood (1986), The Lovers on the Bridge (1991), Shit (2008), Holy Motors (2012) and, finally, It’s not me.
It seems that Leos Carax does not give an interview on this film, although it is very personal…
No, in fact, I have the impression that it’s me who does everything…
Isn’t there a kind of irony that the alter ego you are on screen is now your alter ego in real life?
Let’s not exaggerate, I will be careful not to speak on his behalf. I understand his retention. It has become rare today to want to express yourself solely through your works, without wanting to add more. I also have striking memories of Leos, when he was younger, in this exercise which he did not like. In particular a press conference in Berlin, where the journalists insisted on making him specify the references of Bad blood. He eventually replied that he didn’t like the word “reference” because it reminded him of “reverence” with a Nazi accent. I wonder if it wasn’t worse.
Could you talk about the circumstances, now distant, of your meeting?
It’s simple and banal. I was in the first year of the Conservatory with Jacques Lassalle, and he spotted me, according to legend, on an ANPE file [devenue Pôle Emploi puis France Travail] according to my photograph. I met him at his home, he gave me the script for Boy Meets Girland There you go.
Has your long collaboration led to an elective, even friendly, bond between you?
There is no friendship, strictly speaking. It’s a very strange, non-porous relationship, which is based on complicity and the intensity of the work. It is made of few words. It happens a lot through silence. Each film generates its specifications, in the order of intensity and posture rather than psychology. The limit point was obviously The Lovers on the Bridge, where we came close to sinking, but from which we emerged unscathed. This relationship was renewed later with the creation of the character of Monsieur Merde, where we began to work on the hairpiece, the pure artifice. I think it’s the fact that we both played in Mister Lonely [2007]by Harmony Korine, where he played Michael Jackson’s agent and I Charlie Chaplin, who gave him the idea.
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