The event series “Lycée Toulouse Lautrec” continues this Monday, January 16 on TF1. We met China Thybaud, one of the revelations of this fiction like no other, who plays Victoire, the heroine of the story.
Launched at the beginning of the week on TF1, Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec, the new teenage phenomenon series with Chine Thybaud, Ness Merad, Stéphane De Groodt, Valérie Karsenti and Rayane Bensetti, continues this Monday evening with two new episodes during which the consequences of the catastrophic excursion of the small band of high school students will particularly be felt for Victoire, who could well see her future within the high school threatened.
While Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec got off to a good start by allowing TF1 to place it at the top of the audience, and the public was visibly won over by this new series full of humor, Chine Thybaud, the interpreter of Victoire, returns to our microphone on her career as a young actress. And tells us more about the filming of this series like no other and the reasons that made him want to be part of the adventure.
AlloCiné: You get your first “leading role” thanks to Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec. What did you like about this series and about the character of Victoire?
Chine Thybaud: What I liked was that I wanted to be part of this group, to meet the other actors and actresses. Because even if the arrival of Victoire, my character, is complicated at the very beginning of the series, she will quickly forge a very strong bond with the other students of Toulouse-Lautrec.
This band effect was really found on the set. I was thirsty for this adventure in fact and it allowed me to discover life experiences that I did not know. So it was above all the human experience and this group cohesion that appealed to me. I wanted to be part of this little camp (laughs).
The duo formed by Victoire and Marie-Antoinette is one of the highlights of the series, and your chemistry with Ness Merad is undeniably felt on screen. Was it obvious between you two on the set?
Yes right now. We saw each other when the final distribution had not even been validated by the production and the channel. It was at casting time, and it was instantaneous between Ness and me. I sat down next to her, and she said, “Can you please take my phone and roll up my earphones?” It was actually natural. As if we were already friends. Ness said “Come on, let’s go”, and off we went. It was as if I had always known her. And it was the same with the others. Especially with Adil Dehbi (Reda) whom I already knew.
In order to best prepare for your role, did you talk a lot with Fanny Riedberger, the creator and producer of Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec, who was inspired by her own story to write the screenplay ?
Sure. We even started talking before I accepted the role. I asked to speak to him. I wanted to know how she was going to handle the subject, if she was going to leave room for improvisation. And then it scared me. It’s a big project, it’s my first leading role. I doubted a lot, I needed to be reassured, and Fanny was there.
We are alike on a lot of points. And I’m so happy that she chose me. Because it’s weird for her too to choose someone to play her story on the screen. She is modest, me too. It took us a long time to find each other as people. But to prepare for the role it was great that she was there. She directed the series, she wrote it, she produced it. She knows this story better than anyone. In the end, the series is like a mini documentary. It is a fiction but we are only in the truth. Fanny talks about what she felt. So having his point of view and his advice was invaluable.
FRANCOIS ROELANTS / HABANITA FEDERATION / TF1 China Thybaud on the set of Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec.
Initially, Victoire is full of prejudices when she arrives at this new high school and discovers that she will have to be the referent for a student with a disability. How will it evolve over the episodes?
She’s full of prejudices, it’s true, but it’s also because her life was taken away from her and her opinion was not asked. Even if this high school is unique, any teenager, if she has to change class, change city, change friends and leave her boyfriend, she’s pissed off (laughs). It can be understood.
Of course, there is this discomfort caused by the difference which is added to all that. But beyond the prejudices, Victoire has a teenager’s anger, because she is neglected by her mother. She wants us to love her and that’s why she arrives with a huge shell of plague, a little cold. But it will open. In particular thanks to a love story that will be born with one of the students. And thanks to his friendship with Marie-Antoinette. She will be overwhelmed by the solidarity that there is within this school.
Disability is rarely shown on television. And when that’s the case, we don’t always avoid pathos. Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec completely manages to give another vision of disability, in particular through a good dose of humor. In your opinion, was it important to defuse the drama through comedy and also to show, through the outspokenness of Marie-Antoinette, for example, that people with disabilities are people like the others?
When I arrived at the real Toulouse-Lautrec high school, I realized that what we see in the series is the truth. These teenagers live their handicap and their life with humour. It’s winnowing between the courses, the difference is not a taboo. So yes, I’m delighted that there is so much humor in the series, and so much the better if it can change the way we look at people with disabilities.
There is not enough representation on television. And this lack of consideration is also valid in the public space. In the street there are only steps everywhere, in my public high school there was no elevator. There is still so much to do in terms of accessibility. And it’s easy to turn a blind eye to it. So it’s important that we talk about it, even on television.
FRANCOIS ROELANTS / HABANITA FEDERATION / TF1
China Thybaud surrounded by her acting partners from the series, including Ness Merad and Adil Dehbi.
Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec seems destined to become a recurring series if successful. Are you ready for a season 2 yet?
Of course, I would really like to find these people who are part of my family today. So if season 2 there is, I’m obviously in.
The past year has been a very good year for you, between Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec, which won the prize for Best Series at the La Rochelle Festival, and the series Endless Night on Netflix, in which you had one of the main roles. How do you live with all of this?
Pretty normally (laughs). It didn’t change my life. I live very well all that, I am happy to evolve in this environment that I love. I’m still at school, I’m doing a Master’s degree at the École Normale Supérieure. I’m doing a Master’s in partnership with INA, in documentary design and production. I would like to go behind the camera, in fine. Right now I’m in front of the camera, in my studies I’m behind, and I can’t wait for it all to come together. In any case, I am very grateful for everything that happens to me.
Have you always wanted to be an actress?
Not at all. It happened by chance. The first film in which I shot was Tout nous sourit by Melissa Drigeard, in which I had already played with Stéphane De Groodt. I went to the casting because I had been sent the announcement. I didn’t have an agent, but the casting was conclusive and I got the role.
And then everything happened very quickly: an agent spotted me, I shot in Endless Night, then I landed the role of Victoire in Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec. Everything went super fast. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. But even if I continue my studies and I want to go behind the camera, I intend to continue to go to castings as well.