The filming of the series “The Disappeared of the Black Forest”, in which she plays the judge Camille Hartmann, was not always a cakewalk for Hélène de Fougerolles. The actress tells us about a scene that made her burst into tears.
A few months after having played one of the characters of the historical saga of France 2 And the mountain will flower, Hélène de Fougerolles is back on TF1 in Les Disparus de la Forêt Noire, a thriller in four episodes which allows her to reconnect with the detective genre, just over two years after his departure from Balthazar.
In this mini-series produced by Nagui, which also includes Grégory Fitoussi, Tchéky Karyo and Thierry Godard in its cast, Hélène de Fougerolles plays Camille Hartmann, an investigating judge who lost her memory and was sidelined after a accident that turned his life upside down, and who, a year later, becomes a key witness in a serial murder case.
Twelve bodies were found in a mass grave, near the Franco-German border, in the heart of the Black Forest and the binational military base. All the victims are men, both French and German. This macabre discovery does not take long to revive memories that Camille thought were buried. And soon an obviousness emerges: these murders, perpetrated for some 30 years earlier, have a direct link with the events which took place the evening of the accident of the judge.
“I burst into tears in Nagui’s arms” … Hélène de Fougerolles recounts this scene that marked her
If Hélène de Fougerolles told us in an interview that she loved the opportunity to play “a harsh, tough character, even physically”, the filming of Disappeared from the Black Forest, which mainly took place in the Strasbourg region, was not always a cakewalk for the actress. And one sequence in particular even caused her to burst into tears.
“I had the stupidity to tell the production that I knew how to drive because I had learned to drive a year before the shooting. But in truth I only knew how to make the way between my house and the station. And there, on the series, I found myself driving a car, in the forest, with snow”told us Hélène de Fougerolles about a key sequence of the series, which looks back on what really happened the night of the fateful accident that shattered the life of Camille Hartmann.
Alessandro Clemenza / Banijay Studios France – Fiction’ Air / TF1
“The director said to me, ‘For this sequence, it would be good if you stayed at around 60 km/h. You have a phone in your hand, you write texts, but you can have real cars coming in front. “I was in a state of total anxiety (laughs)”continues the star of the Missing from the Black Forest.
“I remember that day, after shooting the scene in question, I got out of the car and burst into tears in the arms of Nagui, the producer of the series. I said to him, ‘I am sorry, but I was so scared”. Today I laugh about it, but I will never say that I know how to drive again (laughs). Even if, when my character is behind the wheel, he is not quite relaxed fact, so it went pretty well with how I felt that day as it turned out”.
Despite this episode which she will surely remember for a long time, Hélène de Fougerolles seems to have been won over by this new fiction, the resolution of which TF1 viewers will be able to discover tomorrow evening.
“From the start, I told my agent that I wanted to play a darker character, far from the sparkling side by which I am often characterized. And I was spoiled with this series. I read the script and I was really swept away. I really liked that atmosphere, the cast, which was put together afterwards, and the fact that there was a real subject behind the police investigation, while taking us along different paths which are each time a kind of revelation that we do not expect”.
The last two episodes of Disappeared from the Black Forest are broadcast this Thursday, January 12 at 9:10 p.m. on TF1.