From the slums to the Olympia, where the 46th Cesar ceremony will be held on Friday March 12, 2021, there is only one step … that Roschdy Zem has taken with all the elegance that characterizes him. The actor has been chosen to chair this gala as holder of the Best Actor trophy, for his performance in Arnaud Desplechin's thriller, Roubaix, a light. But this is not the only distinction obtained by the daddy of two children since he also received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 for the film. Native. But just like his friend Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem is not the type to express himself on his career marked by admirable performances. A modesty that he takes from a difficult childhood, being parked with his family in a slum.
However, the Franco-Moroccan artist drew a lot of strength from this ordeal despite "misery", as he explained to the magazine Gala in August 2019. "The misery that I was able to know, and the situation that I lived in the slums of Nanterre before being separated from my family, yes … But how to explain to you? I never suffered from it. There was a lot of zest for life, despite the lack of resources. " Because, at that age, it is recklessness that predominates over precariousness. "When we are children, we go to bed after a day full of emotions. It is the adults who think, worry when they think about the next day ", he confided to our colleagues. To avoid these living conditions for their son, the actor's parents, helped by Catholic help, place him in a Belgian foster family until he is 5 years old.
Difficulties that helped him build himself
A separation that the person concerned, of whom Flemish was the first language, keeps in mind. "It marked me, not traumatized. But I believe that for my mother, it remained a guilt, even if she had nothing to do with it ", he confessed in the columns of the World in 2016. It was only five years later that Roschdy Zem joined his family, made up of three other brothers and a sister, in an HLM in Drancy. An exceptional life course which has helped him to build himself as a man.
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