Some acting careers are built in discreet steps, on the sidelines of popular films and dazzling roles. That of Bastien Bouillon, 37, belongs to this category. To his credit: a few plays, more than twenty feature films, as many shorts, fourteen television series, six TV movies. Something to make his face familiar. His name a little less, but he should become so with this first major role in The Night of 12, by Dominik Moll. The actor plays Yohan, a PJ inspector from Grenoble who is not very talkative, attentive, meticulous, and of a worrying seriousness, potentially and dangerously fragile. “Bastien is a very upright person, but you can sense a possible madness in him. Well hidden certainly, but which exists, emphasizes Dominik Moll. We find these two characteristics in the character of Yohan. »
“Someone Righteous” is indeed the first quality that one detects by listening to Bastien Bouillon. Firstly because he himself makes great use of this adjective. But also because he speaks without dodging, rushing into answers with a manner all his own – placid, gentle, but cash. Suddenly, he admits to being insomniac, anxious and obsessive, slow and impatient. He says he likes books that help you not feel alone, and games, which sometimes allow you to forget yourself. Before adding, out of self-precaution, “even if I like them and see them a lot, actors are still a dirty breed, because they are very navel-gazing, much more than human beings in general, who nevertheless already are”.
In the same way, he does not hide the fact that several actors have been approached before him for the role of Yohan. “I had heard of Dominik’s film, and I was offended that he hadn’t thought of me. He auditioned a lot to manage to set up a brigade. He wanted to create a real group, a troupe in a way. I got to the very end of the process, and I was chosen after trials. In the end, what had upset me turned out to be rewarding. Because I was taken on the basis of a job. Dominik trusted me, and it was lifesaving. »
Firm and sibylline presence
Bastien Bouillon had acted in the filmmaker’s previous film, only beasts (2019), in which he played a policeman. In The Night of 12, he has taken the lead, but not enough to bring it back or impose it, if not by a presence that is both firm and sibylline. Without effects or overflow. “The purpose of the film did not require delivering a performative game. I give the sentences monolithically, very straight. This may appear ungrateful, for an actor. Because, obviously, we all want to be flamboyant, to explode, to make people laugh. But what is interesting in the interiority of the character is that it gave the possibility of creating a discrepancy between the very articulated speech and the eyes which, themselves, move a lot, open to the outside. »
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