“It’s intimidating”: actor Benjamin Lavernhe tells how he played Abbé Pierre

On the set of the film ” Abbot stone “a real first biopic on the founder of Emmaüs and directed by Frédéric Tellier, the JDD was able to speak with Benjamin Lavernhe, who plays the star priest. Between pleasure and difficulty, the actor, member of the Comédie-Française, tells how he understood the role of such a well-known personality. For him there was this something ” intimidating “ in this experience “the most significant” of his film career.

Read also – EXCLUSIVE. Behind the scenes of the real first biopic on Abbé Pierre

What did you know of Abbé Pierre?
I just knew that he was a great man defender of the poorest, relentless in not accepting the injustice of our society. When I was younger, like everyone else, I went to Emmaüs to find furniture, at home in Poitiers and then when I moved to Paris. For me, born in 1984, Abbé Pierre was above all an old man in the landscape. I discovered his youth and the novel of his bewildering life by reading Frédéric Tellier’s screenplay. He has survived the century.

Is it difficult to embody someone so famous?
At first, it is especially very intimidating. Abbé Pierre is a very popular French figure, the embodiment of humanism, almost a saint. Finally, it gives wings. This is my most significant experience in the cinema for the moment, whether in terms of preparation, the number of days of filming or the diversity of emotions and episodes to play.

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This is my most memorable cinematic experience so far.

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You embody it from 25 to 94 years old and you look more and more like it. How did you proceed?
We wondered how far to push the resemblance. It happened naturally. It is Abbé Pierre Vieux that we know best. With make-up and prosthetics, you could make me look like her. They came to pick me up at 2 am and the make-up lasted from 3 am to 9 am, that gave me time to learn my scenes… I also tried to take on his quivering voice. When he was young, he was obviously closer to me, I just adopted certain positions and his little Lyonnais accent. I saw a lot of archives to immerse myself in. But the job is also to stay true to yourself and not be obsessed with imitation, which can give something artificial. What matters is transmitting the energy and complex personality of Abbé Pierre. Look at Joaquin Phoenix when he plays Johnny Cash[dans Walk the Line, de James Mangold, 2005]: there is no effort of physical similarity but who cares, it is through him that we understand who this singer was. It’s the same when Michel Bouquet plays François Mitterrand in The Walker of the Champ-de-Mars [de Robert Guédiguian, 2005]: we can’t say that he looks like him, but we give him the scarf and the hat and, thanks to a nod and a sentence, we see Mitterrand.

Have you asked advice from Lambert Wilson, who played him in Winter 54?
With Lambert, we know each other well since I played his son in The Odyssey [de Jérôme Salle, 2016], on Commander Cousteau. We dined together and he spoke to me above all about the man, whom he had the chance to meet and who had a profound effect on him since he even asked the abbot to baptize him. We also thought it was fun to choose tall actors to play a man who was 1.68 meters tall. Lambert is 1.92 meters; me, 1.87 meters!

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There is an assumed educational vocation to make its action known to the youngest

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Will it be a pure historical biopic?
The risk of a biopic is to make a notebook of facts. We are not looking for a summary of his life, too long and too full to fit into two hours. The point of view is to be as close as possible to what stirred his guts. It’s the portrait of an extraordinary man, but also a film about history, adventure and spirituality. And then there is an assumed educational vocation to make its action known to the youngest, so that it does not fall into oblivion. I hope this film will give impetus, encourage people to look at others with sensitivity and, like Abbé Pierre, never get used to seeing poor people sleeping on the street.