Camille Lou: “I do everything so as not to be locked in boxes”

The heroine of the Bazaar de la Charité and Cat’s Eyes finally finds her first big role on the big screen with Natacha (almost) hostess of the air where her naturalness and her playful do wonder.

Since 2019 and the sequence of Play of Anthony Marciano and So far, so good From Mohamed Hamidi, we regularly see you in the cinema (Spoiled,, Kept…). But with Natacha (almost) air hostess From Noémie Saglio, this is the first time that you play the role of a film. Did you know the comic that it is adapted?

No way ! So I discovered the virgin scenario of everything a priori and I devoured it. We immediately see the incredible character there is to play. I will then take time to read the comic since this adaptation marries a change of time and that if the film had been shot in the 70s, date of creation of the comic book, it would undoubtedly have told something else. There, I find the Burlesque of situation comic at the OSS 117 absolutely irresistible. And as it is a kind of prequel – on how Natacha has become a hostess of the air – and not the adaptation of a volume, it gives freedoms. But there is a common point between comics and the film: Natacha does not let go, she is rather optimistic. And it made me laugh because I was often able to blame me for being too much in life! In any case, this humor speaks to me and the way in which he laughs, for example, of the absurd of beauty diktats I really liked. Natacha speaks of the emancipation of women in the 1960s mirror compared to today. All with lightness and never getting a lesson.

How do you create this deliciously facetious character?

I really like to prepare upstream. Read and reread the script of course. But also to speak with Noémie, make her proposals upstream. She had already worked with Vincent (Dedienne) so she wrote her tailor -made steward character. We, we had never met so we had to get to know each other and Noémie really reworked this character over our discussion but from a base that was super solid. It’s been 12 years since she wanted to adapt this comic book. So well before Metoo. So she knew everything at her fingertips.

Kid, you dreamed of cinema or only song and musical, where you will reveal yourself in the eyes of the general public with 1789: The lovers of the Bastille And The legend of King Arthurwere counting in your eyes?

Very young already, I loved making shows. I gathered my cousins ​​and I made staging that mixed song, dance, small theater scenes … I was also extremely a fan of musical The Sun King that I had to look 650 times on DVD. And it turns out that my parents put me in the song because, at a family wedding where I had sang, everyone had stopped dancing to listen to me. From you to me, I saw the video and I always wonder how it could happen! (laughs) But in the end they were not mistaken since I took singing lessons and that was what launched my career as an artist. However, it was not an absolute dream. What made me dream was what I had felt while looking The Sun King. To one day manage to make people travel like I had traveled to this musical. So when I started singing it is seeing the happy people who was important to me. And it remains my first motivation when I play today.

And in this route that will lead you to become an actress, your participation in Dance with stars played like a click …

And yet I had been told that it was important not to do it! Then it was going to close a lot of doors. But I’m tired of listening to what people told me when instinctively, I perceived the opposite. I love this expression which says “if the wind turns, guides your sails”. In, done, I did not see why I was going to deprive myself of an experience that made me want and a challenge to take up which was going to allow me to learn more about myself. And it is a few words from Marie-Claude Pietragalla who have changed everything for me. When she said, talking about me: “Looks like a dance actress“. It moved me to tears and above all authorized me to believe that the kid born in this small village in the North could become an actress, while like Natacha, I did not cohate a priori at the start. So I started with fictions for TF1. Where, again, I was told to pay attention to that no other channel would appeal to me. Make too much TV, I would never make cinema!

Did you like it right away in front of a camera?

My very first experience was unforgettable. Since it was an ad for the SNCF produced by Kim Chapiron with Kevin Costner partner! My English was a bit approximate but it was the first big trip I made of my life, since I had never left Europe, or even the plane. Everything was crazy. I had to pinch myself to believe it. Same when I then picked up this first role for TF1 in Red bracelets. I always expected that someone comes to tell me that it was a mistake. This impostor syndrome did not leave me today but it also allows me to question myself constantly

What role did a real rocking in your journey allow?

Without hesitation, The bazaar of charity. I waited for this role. I refused a lot of proposals to do so because its shooting has been shifted several times. I deeply like television. It was she who rocked all my childhood and adolescence. And there, I had an absolute love at first sight for the script and the crazy ambition of the project. It was a real pivot in my career. Whoever allowed me to make choices, try not to repeat myself, to know how to say no. I could never stop turning because I love it. But I also understood that you had to know how to ask yourself to find yourself, avoid getting lost and regaining inspiration.

So far, you are offered much more diverse things on TV than in the cinema where you are especially confined to popular comedies. How do you explain it?

It’s funny because I did not think at the start being able to comedy, to have this essential rhythm. But on TV, I am indeed offered more dramas. I could also see with the previews of Natacha That the people who follow me by TV are surprised to see me in comedies! But it will change because at the end of the year, I will shoot the second feature film of Anaïs Volpe which I loved Between the waves. But for a while, my challenge was to succeed in winning a drama in the cinema. Anaïs has just allowed me to shatter a box.

Have you tried to provoke it?

No, it’s not in my nature. I admire people who do it but I am totally incapable of it. In any case, I would hurt it and it would have no chance of succeeding. But you know, even if everything had to stop tomorrow, I would have already been very lucky to have experienced what I could experience. As long as I manage to give happiness to people, I will continue. But if one day I am explained to me that I no longer interest anyone, I will retire without worry.

Natacha (almost) air hostess. From Noémie Saglio. With Camille Lou, Vincent Dedienne, Didier Bourdon… Duration: 1h30. Released April 2