Nicolas Marié – Goodbye idiots: “Albert Dupontel is picky, but his demands have a purpose”

Portrait of a faithful actor, who shines in Adieu les cons, this Sunday on France 2.

One of the tastiest supporting roles in French cinema continues his long-term collaboration with Albert Dupontel in style in Goodbye idiots. We met him at the beginning of October 2020, just before the film’s first cinema release: theaters having closed due to the Covid-19 epidemic, it finally returned to the big screen in May 2021 and recorded a total of 2 million admissions in France. A very nice one given the circumstances.

We are sharing his portrait again on the occasion of the rebroadcast on France 2 of this film which triumphed at the 2021 César Awards. Nicolas Marié notably received the award for best supporting actor for his performance.

Goodbye idiots: Dupontel at the top (Review)

“I have the same woman that I have loved for thirty-six years, the same agent for thirty-six years and I have known Albert Dupontel for thirty-five years. It’s appallingly banal but I am desperately faithful to these pillars of my life.” Who said happy people don’t have stories? Certainly someone who has never met Nicolas Marié, who we find in a Parisian bar to tell him all the good things we think of his well-shaken composition as a blind archivist who escapes from his basement to accompany the incredible adventures of the two heroes ofGoodbye idiotsimagined by the faithful Dupontel.

His smile is as frank as it is mischievous. “As a kid, I spent my time dressing up in front of the mirror, playing anything and everything.” What followed was the conservatory, a theater troupe set up with other beginners like Muriel Robin, Nicolas Briançon and Elie Semoun, then the return to Paris for an all-out career, on the stage of course, but also on TV, in the cinema and even as a voice actor, notably for Tim Roth, Nicolas Cage or John Travolta.

Unforgettable memories
If some actors cultivate the policy of scarcity, Nicolas Marié follows the opposite logic. And assume it. “I like to work. I don’t just do extraordinary things, but I don’t care. I like practicing my profession with people I like. I avoid like the plague those who have the reputation of being boring, whatever their talent. Afterwards, obviously, between TV and cinema, they are not the same means and the same requirements. But, for me, between the ‘motor’ and the ‘cut’, it’s the same thing.”

This logic also explains why he is so fond of supporting roles which allow him to move from one adventure to another, without downtime. He started with Jean Poiret in The Zebra. We saw it in Michel Deville, Nicolas Boukhrief, Jan Kounen, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Pierre Jolivet. But obviously the most beautiful story he wrote – and continues to write – in the cinema is the one with Albert Dupontel. Besides, it warns you straight away. “I admit, I have boundless admiration for him.”

However, when he talks about himself, there is no trace of obsequious sycophancy, but a succession of unforgettable memories that jostle together. Starting with their meeting at the Porte Saint-Martin theater to The Miser. “It was the first time that Albert went on stage. And you noticed right away that he had this little extra something despite an improbable staging. Besides, we both had a laugh with the director.”

It definitely creates connections. Dupontel asked him to play in Desiredhis first short. Therefore, from Bernie has Goodbye idiotshe will give him a role in each of his films (with the exception ofGoodbye up there where he was held elsewhere). The process is always the same: “We might not see each other for two years and then one day I get a phone call: ‘I have something for you to read…’ and off we go again.”

With each film, the obligatory passage through the rehearsal box. “It can last two weeks because we rehearse both the text and our future trips to the set. Albert is picky and can seem too intrusive. He’s a steamroller, but his demands have a purpose.” And Marié is the first to recognize its strong influence on his game. “I know I naturally tend to do a lot. Albert makes me remove fat.” The result bursts the screen.

In Goodbye idiotsNicolas Marié finds his best role at Dupontel. He displays his gentle madness, his sense of the first degree, his art of the absurd with the ease of a trapeze artist who launches into the air, certain of the solidity of the emergency net. In this case, the look as uncompromising as it is complicit in Albert Dupontel who, moreover, has already spoken to him about their next meeting. Nicolas Marié has not yet finished having fun. And we with him.

Désiré: Do you know Albert Dupontel’s first crazy short film?

Trailer ofGoodbye idiots :

Albert Dupontel: “Goodbye idiots, I wrote it two years ago. Long before flash balls or yellow vests…”