Pierre Rochefort was in town earlier this year for the French Film Festival and talked to RIU about his role as Baptiste Cambière in Nicole Garcia’s intimate and melancholy character drama Going Away (the original French title of which, Un Beau Dimanche, actually translates as A Beautiful Sunday – but anyway).
Pierre, Nicole Garcia, who co-wrote and directed this film, is your Mum, right? And your Dad is the great Jean Rochefort [who doesn’t appear in this, and is best-known outside France for films like Man On The Train, The Closet and the original Wild Target]?
Yes!… He and I have a lot in common. I think that if I draw on a little mustache then I would look a lot like him.
So what is it like being cast in a movie by your own mother? Did you have to audition?
I didn’t need to audition, no… You know, she directed me in her first short movie, which was quite a while ago as I was four years old. I also had a small role in the last movie she directed, Un Balcon Sur La Mer [A View Of Love]… I also didn’t allow myself to become an actor for a long, long time, because I thought that I couldn’t really have my own career coming from this family. I always felt shy, and someone said that I should try drama school to try and deal with my shyness, and I was there for three days when I started to think that I could get on the long, long road to be an actor.
For someone who didn’t want to be an actor you’ve already got some impressive credits, including a role in last year’s Farewell, My Queen and the original French version of the spooky TV series The Returned [Les Revenants]…
Farewell, My Queen was only a small part… And being directed by my mother was great, it was wonderful! There was a lot of pressure before the shooting as we wanted to have a professional experience together, and it was a big challenge but everything was very soft and enjoyable. I called her Nicole, I was her actor and she was my director, and that was great for everybody, for the team, and for us… Afterwards she said that she was inspired to write the character by me, by my temperament…
But the character, Baptiste, is so withdrawn, even haunted, so do you really want to be compared to him like that?
He’s stuck in the shadows by his own demons. And I’m more talkative and less withdrawn than him, sure, but we do have things in common… I was scared by the inner feelings and the way that he doesn’t show anything about what’s going on inside him, and that that wouldn’t be able to be conveyed to the camera. But Nicole and other people, who saw what was being shot and what I was doing as we were shooting, they all said to me that what I was doing was working, and keep on that path.
What about the relationship between Baptiste and Louise Bourgoin’s Sandra? There’s a lot going on there too…
And it was all in Nicole’s script. And it’s easy to be turned on by Louise Bourgoin too! She’s so beautiful and sensitive, and we had this really tender relationship, and we weren’t rushed, so we were able to meet as actors and take our time getting to know our characters and each other.
And what about working so closely with Mathias Brezot, who plays little Mathias?
We were very close too, and I looked after him. He didn’t have any airs and graces, and he’s not really an actor and he still isn’t really sure that he wants to be one. He’s also about the same age as my son, which made things really easy.
And Dominique Sanda, a major figure of European cinema of the ‘70s, appears as your mother…
She was slightly intimidating and very serious, yes. She wasn’t from my generation at all, but we had a really great meeting, and it was quite strange as she has a whole different rhythm and way of working… I was very interested in the way that she spoke and in the way that she did things so differently, and so it was a real pleasure to work with her.
So Pierre: as somebody who didn’t want to be an actor, what are you doing now that Going Away is all finished?
I’m going to stick with acting because I love it. It’s been six years since I became an actor, but this is my best role ever and it was a whole new experience. I love the excitement and adrenalin… And I want to travel, which I love. Doesn’t everyone?
I Wake Up Screening 