Nicolas Cazale: “. I wanted to take my experience and open it to a larger point of view that it could touch people from everywhere. And to be honest, I think it’s important to take what it could have destroyed you and create something bigger.”
Nicolas Cazalé is an actor and a director. He attended the Cours Florent drama school in Paris. But after a short time he abandoned his acting studies to make his debut in the television series Louis Page-Les gens du voyage by Jean Nainchrik.
In cinema, he established himself with the leading role in Le Clan (2004) by director Gaël Morel, where he played Marc, one of three French brothers of Algerian origin who lost their mothers. His character is a young rebel who unloads his tensions in Capoeira, in physical exercises in the gym and in drugs, which he usually procures from a group of unscrupulous drug dealers. He spends his life on the streets with his clan of friends and his fighting dog, with whom he has a very close relationship. In the film he is alongside Stéphane Rideau, who plays his older brother Christophe, and Thomas Dumerchez, his younger brother.
In 2008 he was nominated for the César Award for Best Male Promising Actor for Éric Guirado’s film Le Fils de l’épicier.
The film tells a very delicate family drama and deals with themes such as motherhood and psychological health. What prompted you to talk about this story?
In my opinion, in a movie, there is always a part of intimacy, something true and deep, even if it’s small or well hidden. One of my favourite French writer, Jean Claude Carrière, said that you only can speak about a subject that you know perfectly. Nevertheless I didn’t want to make a movie about my mother or me when I was a child because nobody cares about my story. I wanted to take my experience and open it to a larger point of view that it could touch people from everywhere. And to be honest, I think it’s important to take what it could have destroyed you and create something bigger.
What message would you like to convey to your viewers?
True love doesn’t confine, it liberates. That what the mother do, when her son wants to leave. She would like him to stay but prefers to let him go even if it’s very difficult for her. And with the bird, maybe we can understand “don’t worry mum, one day, when I felt the desire or the need to see you, I will be back”
How did you choose the protagonist of your film?
I have been knowing Audrey, the mother, for a very long time. She is an incredible actress. She is open minded and it’s very easy to speak with her and try different possibilities. For the son, Kian, it was a casting. When I saw him, he was very stressed and he wasn’t good but I could feel something very sensitive inside him. Sometimes, the most important thing it’s not the actor but the human. After that it’s just work, work, work…
What kind of approach did you have with your actors?
I love to create an intimacy with them. When I need to explain something on the set, I whisper in their ear because it’s just about them and me. It helps me to be very concentrate and focus on what is happenings in their eyes and bodies.
What are you working on right now?
I have just finished to write my first long movie. It’s about… You will see… I can assure you that one day you will see “The sleeping beast”…
THE AUTHOR
Name: Nicolas Cazale
Film: “A Day Will Come”