Twenty years ago we met Quelqu’un de bien (someone good) on our beaches, as stated in the film you shot in Dinard under the direction of Patrick Timsit. Eight years earlier, we discovered you alongside Antoine de Caunes and Philippe Gildas on the set of Nulle Part Ailleurs. Every evening you played a different character. All of them became famous and their only limit was their excessiveness. Excessiveness will be your trademark in the cinema, your touch, the distinctive sign of great actors. It is difficult to forget the truculent dialogues of Serge Benamou, the role that made you shine on the big screen, in the trilogy with more than 17 million tickets sold, Would I Lie to You the powerful angry jabs of the Turk in Le Boulet or the histrionics that you forgot to install the off button in Rire et Châtiment.
You played a serial killer of job seekers under the direction of Costa-Gavras in The Axe, a doctor for cannibals in Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day, a Houellebeckian virgin in Philippe Harel’s Whatever, the famous Commissaire Adamsberg imagined by Fred Vargas in Régis Wargnier’s Have Mercy on us all, a banker robbed by magicians in Louis Leterrier’s Now you see me or a top boss at the Ministry of the Interior in James Watkins’ Bastille Day. You are currently starring in Canailles and, before letting you join The Middle Kingdom for the fifth live-action adaptation of the adventures of Asterix and Obelix, the Dinard Festival of British Film is honoured to entrust you with the role of President of the Jury for its 33rd edition
© Hugo Kerr
