Jamel Debbouze makes his transfer window: “I wanted another cinoche, deeper than a comedy”

He bursts the screen as a footballer agent, a role under tension which he himself initiated, to see currently in the cinema. He tells us why.

It is not quite the first time that Jamel Debbouze embodies a shaded character in a dramatic film. The troublemakerAsterix often played on his other facet on the big screen (until you get a collective interpretation price for Nativesat the 2006 Cannes Film Festival). But with Transfer windowit had been a few years since we had seen Jamel Like that, inhabited by a dramatic role. However, the actor refuses to speak of “a turning point“In his career.

During a long interview retracing the significant moments of his filmography, to read in number 559 of first currently on newsstands (with David Lynch on the cover), the actor who will be 50 years old tempers:

“I have already played in dramas! But I do not hide from you that this film is special for me because I initiated it and that I worked like never.”

Because Transfer windowit is first of all an idea of Jamel. It was he who went to see the producer Alain Goldmanthen the director Tristan Séguélato tell them about this film on football. Because “Football has always been part of my life “he confesses at first. “”I played in Trappes, I was even president of the club. I am very close to Nicolas Anelka. I understand why we call it the opium of the people. So it’s been a while that I want to do something around football but without knowing what. And then a character won: the agent who has a bad reputation because we have the feeling that he is just interested in the cash, while he is subject to a crazy double pressure, that of clubs and players whose He takes care of. “

So here he is in the costume of Driss Berzane, this week in theaters, doing his Transfer window behind the scenes of PSG.

“With Transfer windowI wanted another cinoche. A little deeper than a comedy ” he analyzes before explaining:

“Robert de Niro said that talent went through the choices. I admire these actors who turn without asking too many questions. I have sacred the cinema. A little too sometimes. And by dint of saying no, the time passes and your following film becomes sacred. I have never shot out.

Transfer windowfrom Tristan Séguéla, is to be seen in the cinema from this Wednesday, February 19.

Find the entire interview with Jamel Debbouze carried out by Thierry Chèze in issue 559 of first on newsstands.