For fifteen years, she was Captain Berthaud in “Engrenages”, a series that dusted off the detective genre. While waiting for a hypothetical new season, La Gardoise is firing on all cylinders on Netflix. She tells herself in “VSD”.
Le splits: best known for her role as a cop on the razor’s edge (gears), Caroline returned to her first love by performing Suzanne on stage in Eden -Cinema, a play by Marguerite Duras. Before next summer, she will play footballer Marinette Pichon for the big screen and continues to hit up festivals to screen the short film she co-directed, Journalist(s)and in which she finds a certain Thierry Godard, her double male in gears. She is currently a firefighter in the Netflix event series, Notre-Dame, the part of the fire.
VOD. Of cop in gearsyou pass -fireman in Notre-Dame, the part of the fire ; what does the cathedral represent for you?
Caroline Proust. It’s such an important spiritual and historical monument, an architectural gem… Especially since it’s not so common for a cathedral to be erected for a woman, even if it’s not just any woman, of course! I remember very well April 15, 2019; I was nearing the ring road when I saw columns of smoke in the distance. A friend then called me, in tears: “Notre-Dame is on fire! » She’s a very religious friend – which I’m not – who moreover helped me build my multifaceted character, firefighter, believer and lesbian. No, I’m not a believer and yet… Before passing the conservatory, I had gone to Notre-Dame to light a candle, something a little weird, a little silly insofar as I don’t think so. But since I like to light candles…
Seeing you on a theater stage surprised more than one and yet that’s where it all started for you.
Yes. When I was 17, I joined a company created by Jean Varela, the Young Regional Theater, of which I was the youngest promotion. It was a moment when I was very unhappy – a friend had committed suicide, my best friend was leaving Montpellier and I had just been dumped. At first, I wanted to be an archaeologist and just after my baccalaureate, I enrolled in art history at the Paul-Valéry university while applying for the conservatory. But, from the first hour of playing the very first piece I played, from the first rehearsal of Hello ! Hey ! Sganarelle! by Guy Vassal, I forgot everything and said to myself: “That’s really what I want to do. » It was a first success since we did a national tour, it even brought me some money. We really did everything: for this play which tells the life of Molière, we set up the set in overalls, then we got dressed and made up Grand Siècle. But as soon as the curtain fell, we became machino again to dismantle everything. A revelation.
You just resume Eden -Cinemaa piece by Marguerite-Duras that you started just before the pandemic.
We were supposed to resume it in December 2020… We were offered to film it to broadcast it on Facebook and YouTube but with the other actors, we refused. We found that was the wrong answer; being visible on cell phones, sorry, that’s not theatre. We had watched Nicole Garcia’s play directed by her son; we were appalled by the comments posted, like “Did you see how she’s dressed? », “but what is this suit? » Where “I’m hungry, I’m going to go get some food” – that was for a reading ofIn Search of Lost Time, a peak. And even this marabout who offered his services for those who were “lovesick”… So no.
A word about cinema.
I passed the casting for white wedding, by Jean-Claude Brisseau (1989). He got on well with me and I would like to point out that he behaved perfectly – we didn’t know at the time that he liked young girls a little too much and that he could take advantage of them… In short, Brisseau wanted seeing me again for tryouts on a Friday but it was time for an acting class that I didn’t want to miss, so I didn’t participate in this second stage, the callback as they say, and he took Vanessa Heaven. It was her first role but it was already a star – she had done Joe the cab. So anyway, I was out of the game. I have no regrets.
Your service in gears made you change dimension.
Yes, but it wasn’t immediate. I remember, for example, that at the end of filming the first season, I told the producers that if need be, if they ever needed me for a sequel, I was in for it. No, it’s really the public alone who decided what’s next (eight seasons, Editor’s note). We were pioneers because it was Canal’s first original creation. In fact, after seeing me in The cousin by Alain Corneau (1997), I had been offered several cop roles but I almost systematically refused them apart from Marc Eliotin which I had to say stuff like “stop there! Rascal! ». Nobody talks like that in real life… But hey, I was a young actress, I didn’t ask questions, the channel had validated… Withgearswe thought we could be more irreverent, say things like “Shut the fuck up, you asshole! », to be cops closer to the reality of cops who don’t take gloves and speak a rather green language. In that sense, we were, I think, pioneers. In gears, there is also the quality of the scripts, the way of filming, of using the lights and then it is worth highlighting the chemistry between the actors; she sees herself on the screen. My best memory ? The collusion I had with Thierry Godard, alias Gilou.
Did you make a fortune with the series?
Certainly not like an American actress who had the leading role in a series for 86 episodes, but enough to buy me a house near Paris; house with garden, please. You have certainly heard of this day in November when women symbolically stop being paid to highlight wage inequalities between men and women? Just know that if I had been a man, I would have bought two or three houses.
collected by EC
