Audrey Fleurot’s secrets at the La Rochelle Festival

Barely Audrey Fleurot When she sets foot in La Rochelle where she chairs the jury of the Fiction Festival, her first name is on everyone’s lips. Tourists and onlookers wait for her on the old port on the terrace of the Les Flots restaurant. But the actressGears and French village won’t really have a minute to herself between now and Sunday.

Between viewings, discussions with his jurors, interviews, photo session, every minute is counted. “ Saturday evening, I finished filming two new episodes of HPI. I came back and had 24 hours in Paris to get my color done, remove my hair and have clothes lent to me for the week. », she blurted out with disarming naturalness. Before you worry because on this Tuesday, early afternoon, she must quickly throw out the few lines of her opening speech for the Festival’s curtain-raiser at 7:30 p.m.

Read alsoAudrey Fleurot (Esprit d’hiver): “This series presented me with a unique challenge: playing madness”

LE FIGARO TV MAGAZINE. – What does the La Rochelle fiction festival mean to you?

Audrey FLEUROT. – I have a real attachment to this festival which I have always found extremely joyful. We see as many friends as possible concentrated on two streets. We go from tail to tail going to see each other’s fiction with this little enjoyable side of desperately postponing the start of the school year. La Rochelle is the last comet of summer, a last moment of carelessness. Becoming president of the jury means discovering the festival at a different pace. I have a minister’s schedule! But I can’t wait to delve into the selection, a live panel of French and European fiction. I’m going to discover actors and authors. Anyway, I’m going to update myself. We have nothing to be ashamed of what we do in France.

Which jury president are you going to be?

I tried to develop a method, with the idea of ​​not deliberating at the very end of the festival. There are more than forty works in the running! But I don’t think that’s going to do it. Each juror watches three programs a day and they are not all the same. So at any given time, we didn’t all see the same things. I hope we will still manage to make small points. What already strikes me after seeing a few productions is their eclecticism. On the one hand, there are very intimate series, where the writers and actors work on themselves. Their life constitutes their raw material. On the other, there are the great historical frescoes, of great spectacle. Fiction is essential. Entertaining is something that is somewhat denigrated. But fiction makes you think, opens new horizons, unlocks unsuspected worlds. It can change mentalities. Sometimes I come out feeling upset.

“When I was doing theater the range of female characters was small, confined to the house and the children. Actresses disappeared after the age of 35. »

Your career illustrates the upheavals in French fiction and its rise to power.

I feel lucky to have arrived at the moment when French fiction took a major turn. With the appearance of active and interesting female characters. When I was doing theater the range of female characters was small, confined to the house and the children. Actresses disappeared after the age of 35. When I landed the role of Joséphine in Gears, it was the first time that I saw a careerist heroine who had chosen not to have a family. Likewise Hortense in The French Village was iconoclastic. Confusing. I had trouble closing it. The level of intensity of the scenes was crazy. We felt a form of responsibility: this series evoked a past that was still fresh in our memories. Morgane Alvaro and HPI, it’s yet another experience. For the first time, I brought the character back to me. I made him my clown. Morgane is an example of the unpredictable alchemy between an actor, a role and his life at a given moment.

A little word about Infiltrated your new series for France 2, which arrives Monday September 25?

I was dying to meet up with the team French village, producer Emmanuel Daucé and screenwriter Frédéric Krivine. I was attracted by the idea of ​​a character playing a character. This chemist, single mother, is so reasonable. So stuck in the life that comes with his son and his work. He’s the least likely person to infiltrate a synthetic drug ring. She is terrified, absolutely not made for that. And yet this will bring her back to life, reveal her to herself. There was an action side that I had not undertaken until then.

“I had an American project that I was unable to realize because of the strike. For the moment, I have somewhat mourned it. »

Are you keeping an eye on the actors’ strike movement in the United States?

I am all the more the subject because it concerns me. I had an American project that I was unable to realize because of the strike. I can’t tell you more. For the moment, I have somewhat mourned it. This movement is completely legitimate. I just hope that they will win their case quickly and that their progress will benefit actors all over the world. I didn’t think it would last this long: the economic consequences are impressive. The striking force and power of unions are fascinating.

What awaits you after La Rochelle?

For the first time in a long time, I’m going to have time for myself. I will be able to settle down and follow my desires, develop my own projects. It’s production above all that interests me, being at the basis of projects. I want to tell stories and have a say in the entire artistic direction. Being there from start to finish: as an actress you arrive very late in the process.