In 1991, Vanessa Paradis caused a sensation at the Césars by committing one of the biggest mistakes in the history of the ceremony. We come back to this incredible moment for you.
It is Saturday March 9, 1991. The 16th César ceremony is quietly in full swing and nothing seems likely to distract the high mass of French cinema from its little routine. But that’s without counting on a certain Vanessa Paradis, who will give another dimension to the evening with an anthology ball!
When Vanessa Paradis appears on the stage of the Parisian theater of the Champs-Élysées, it is to present the prize for Most Promising Actress. Alongside Richard Bohringer, the one who obtained the distinction a year earlier for her role in Noce blanche follows the meticulous tradition of each evening of this type and the moment comes, after having opened the famous envelope, to reveal the name of the lucky winner. But that’s the drama…
“The Caesar is awarded to Judith Godreche in… Shit! Sorry… Oh, I’m sorry, excuse me! It is Judith Henry In The Discreetexcuse me !” Shock in the audience, because instead of announcing the real winner, Judith Henry for La Discrète, poor Vanessa Paradis gave the name of Judith Godrèche, also nominated in the category for her performance in La Désenchantée.
The reason for the blunder is not very complicated to understand. Big stress + identical first name in the list = a Vanessa Paradis who gets confused and makes a big blunder in front of a taken aback Richard Bohringer. A definitely cult moment to (re)discover in the player below!
We imagine that at the time and in the days that followed, Vanessa Paradis, who recently revealed that she had refused to star in a big French cinema success, had a rather bad experience with this incident, committed in front of a packed house and thousands of viewers. But she obviously recovered well.
In 2010, responsible for presenting the César for Best Director, Vanessa Paradis, with the complicity of Valérie Lemercier and Gad Elmaleh, showed a lot of self-mockery with a little sketch referring to this misadventure. To discover below.
The César Academy was not resentful towards the actress after this incident since Vanessa Paradis was nominated in 2000 for her role in The Girl on the Bridge and in addition to having presented the prize for Best Director in 2010, she chaired the prestigious ceremony in 2018.
We will note in conclusion that the 1991 ceremony was a real mistake, since Smaïn had completely forgotten to mention Odette Laure among the actresses nominated for the César for Best Supporting Actress!
The trailer for “La Discrète”, with Judith Henry, César for Best Actress for her role (yes, yes, I promise!) :