Star of the small screen in the years 90-2000 (find 30 years of cult programs Saturday June 18, at 9:10 p.m., on TF1), Philippe Risoli takes a lucid look at his career. Meeting with an enthusiast, passed to the theater thanks to his friend Jean-Pierre Pernaut.
When you look back on your TV years, what feelings come back to you?
Philippe Risoli: It was the realization of a childhood dream. With each new show, people thought of me, just like today with Camille Combal on TF1 or Cyril Feraud on France 3. Success calling for success, the projects were linked. It lasted seventeen years, until they put a little banana peel under my feet. That’s how it is, that’s the world of TV.
What qualities are needed to endure this frenzy?
Being ultra-passionate is what brings together people who succeed in this profession, with what they have in their guts, their talent and the help of a certain number of circumstances. You have to be there at the right time. Then, you have to be lucky enough to get the support of the public, this sympathy which fell on me like a tsunami and which persists when people come to see me at the theater today. And energy. When everything works for you, you are never tired! And then one day a new program director comes along and some of them, who you thought were your friends when they were eyeing your spot, end up stealing it from you. I didn’t want to do it at the time but I will tell all about it one day…
How do you deal with the phone that no longer rings after the end of the Right price (he hosted this game on TF1 from 1992 to 2001)?
Everything stopped suddenly: on August 31, 2001, I was at TF1, and on August 1er September, I was no longer there! On some level, the phone doesn’t shut down overnight. It rings less and you who have never called end up making a few phone calls, even if you don’t like to beg. Naively, I thought that professional qualities always end up winning. But there is a bunch of envious and embittered people in this profession who put your head under water. So I had two or three difficult years, but I was lucky to have a family that supported me.
Do you have any regrets?
The only one is The Celebrity Farm. Because I was told that if I did this show, they would immediately find me another one on the air. The first time I categorically refused, then they were more specific in their proposals which, in the end, did not materialize.
How did you decide to reorient yourself towards the theatre?
Honestly, for a while, given the job and the level of notoriety that I had acquired, I told myself that someone was going to give me a little call. That was not the case. I had 50 brooms, I wasn’t going to sit on my couch and I’m not too much of an angling!
Did you have financial worries?
I had worked enough not to have the knife under the throat financially. The problem was not there: when you have this job in your skin, you don’t let go of it overnight! Especially when you have little esteem for the person who stole your place… In this job, you have to have several strings to your bow. In the meantime, I came back to Gulli (for a new version of The School of Fans, editor’s note), but I who am a cinephile, the theater was running through my head. That’s when Jean-Pierre Pernaut, with whom I had been friends for a long time, offered me his play Matignon trap with his wife Natalie. I really worked with a director, then the plays followed one another.
What’s next?
My book I don’t want you to see me die – in homage to my father’s last sentence – will be released at the start of the school year and will sift through the themes that are close to my heart. TV, unless I go polish the boots of certain leaders as I see it sometimes, I don’t think I will do it again. And I have other projects in the theater. What I would like is to have a role in a TV movie or a series. Doing TV again in another way, that would make me happy!
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