An interview with Laurent C. Lucas

Q: How did you get started as an actor?

Laurent C. :  I developed an interest in doing impressions at an early age and was quite good at making people laugh impersonating personalities. I auditioned to get in Neils Arestrup’s acting school, the ‘Theatre-Ecole du Passage’ in Paris and got the opportunity to work with renowned stage directors such as Olivier Py at the Theatre Granit in Belfort in particular. 

Q: What kind of roles are you best at playing?

Laurent C. : I definitely favour ambiguous, antagonist characters as I can play nasty but charming at the same time, with a bit of French Je Ne Sais Quoi! Being fluent in English, and a Native French speaker, I enjoy the ability to combine both.

Q: What has been your big moment so far as an actor?

Laurent C. :  I have to say shooting The Time of Their Lives, a feature film by Oscar nominated writer/director Roger Goldby, with Golden Globe-winner Dame Joan Collins, BAFTA-winner Pauline Collins, and Italian heartthrob Franco Nero, the original Django. Set partly in England and France, I play a French detective involved in the enquiry after dramatic events take place in France. 

Q: Is there a director that you particularly admire and that you would like to work with?

Laurent C. :  It would have been John Cassavetes. He was able to get the best raw emotions out of his actors and to depict life on film like nobody else, refusing to compromise to please the big studios.  

Q: Do you have a wish list of directors you’d like to work with?

Laurent C. : To name but a few, and starting with France, Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Jacques Audiard, Quentin Tarantino, Sam Mendes, Martin Scorsese, the Cohen Brothers, Francis Coppola and Paul Haggis. There’s a mix of genres and Indie and big budget films, but I think the connection is that they all developed stories around tormented, ambiguous, antagonist characters.

Q: What is your background?

Laurent C. : I grew up in the 70s and 80s watching American series on TV, such as Wild Wild West, Magnum PI, and Columbo in particular where I admired the way Peter Falk impersonated the character. I later watched him in Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, and it’s through his work that I discovered Cassavetes.

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Aside of acting, I have two other passions: Pink Floyd and Ferrari

I have never had the chance to watch Pink Floyd live before or after Roger Waters left, but I have had the privilege over the last few years to watch the new rendition of The Wall by Roger Waters at the O2 in London, and more recently, watch David Gilmour at the Royal Albert Hall, again in London. It felt like such a privilege to be able to listen and watch them perform live. Both concert were equally amazing, in two radically opposite ways. The Wall was a full on show on a grand scale (the 100 foot long wall made up of 242 individual bricks, doubles up as a background screen where top of the art imagery is being displayed, in a massive 20,000 seats venue). In opposition, David Gilmour's performance, although including some laser show and projections on the compulsory disc shaped screen, was mostly a lean, down to basics concert, a band of musicians playing their favourite music for the delight of hundreds of fans in a relatively small but very pleasing to the eyes and ears venue.  I've now heard that the remaining members of Pink Floyd David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Nick Mason are going to reunite for a North American tour. I only hope that they will manage to pocket their (strong!) differences long enough for the tour to finish first, and more importantly to prolong it and take it to Europe! Probably just a dream considering the latest exchanges between Waters and Gilmour over press interviews about playing Pink Floyd songs during the tour... 

But the mention of Nick Mason brings me nicely to my second passion: FERRARI! Definitely a dream to most apart from the few privileged who can afford to pay the high purchase price and subsequent running cost of a supercar. But this week, the dream came true, albeit just for a few days, for I was the temporary keeper of a Ferrari California! It was parked on my drive when not on the road, and used as my get around car the rest of the time. And what a pleasure it was! For such a powerful car the throttle was very gradual and the acceleration in low revs very smooth, making it very easy to drive around town. But shift the gears down using the steering wheel paddles, and the acceleration is phenomenal, letting the adrenaline kick in without delays. I'm not a car reviewer so will not try to give you a full review of this wonderful car, just that the driving position close to the ground, the bucket leather seats, the sport steering wheel, the roar of the engine and the big bonnet puts you straight away in the right mood, and make the car fit around you like a very comfortable leather glove that you don’t want to take off again, ever! Box ticked on my bucket list? Well yes, but no at the same time, as such was the pleasure of ‘owning’ this wonderful Ferrari for a few days, that I now only want to relive the experience again, and again, and again…

For more information contact:

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contact@franglais-moi.co.uk