Interview: Gérard Depardieu - France's god
To the interview with Gérard Depardieu
All or nothing, there is no center in the life of Gérard Depardieu: he is an actor and winemaker. In Paris he owns a fish shop, a bistro and refurbishes a city palace - all at the same time, all in the same street.
In the middle of Paris, in fine St. Germain, Gérard Depardieu owns a fish shop and a bistro, refurbishes a city palace and has a second built. Everything in a street. If he does not shoot or sells his wine anywhere in the world, you can see him there. Provided you recognize him. Because Depardieu is the gray-clad colossus on a motorcycle that rattles the Rue du Cherche-Midi, the name of the road, up and down. "Yesterday he was there," say the construction workers. The fish sellers say the same thing. Good, then he could be there today. We have an appointment, but there are no laws for a Depardieu. An appointment, an appointment - Vabanque games. This man can do everything, is allowed to do everything - and he does it. Eat, drink, insult. If he does not have a good day. However, if he has a good day, it is said that he is the most generous, gentle, funniest person ever. We enter the construction site. Deafening noise, a dozen craftsmen in action. The Stadtpalais, the facade just freshly painted, is not finished yet. Two concierge cottages left and right. Absurd, but here he lives. A giant in the dwarf house. In one are bed and bath, in the other kitchen and sofa. When Depardieu is home, the cottages are full. Nobody fits. Coincidence? Barely. The 62-year-old lives alone despite his girlfriend, who is 29 years younger and is called by him "ma petite Clémentine". Suddenly, a house door opens, Depardieu appears.
"Bonjour, I'll be right away!", A smile indicates and is gone again. This is followed by the stage-ready appearance of his housekeeper in the smock, with broom and bucket. Anyone who wants to know how Depardieu is is best asked. She knows his life, his loves. "Like Elizabeth, she will not give it back," she says, resolutely putting the debris all over the place together. Elisabeth Guignot, his great love, his first wife, the mother of his two eldest children. An incredible couple. She, small and petite and of great proportions, and he - the opposite. It was not good. Depardieu never had time for the family and still feels guilty today. "Do not talk about her!" Advises the housekeeper. At all, family, women, his tragically deceased son Guillaume, these topics are not at all. What's going on? It will show.
Depardieu reappears, enthusiastically welcomes Jörg Lehmann, the photographer who is his friend - otherwise we would not have made an appointment. In a gigantic lobby, which is still under construction, chairs are stacked on top of each other, in front of it a kind of log lays. "Art," says Monsieur, grabbing a chair, lets himself fall. And graciously points to the lower place on the trunk. Then he looks around with a slightly distant look, as if he were sitting in a monastery in Tibet and now greet his monks for morning prayers.
He says: "In the morning I walk through the empty house, smelling the stones, looking at everything in peace." At an early age, preferably at five, nobody bothers me, it's getting light, I do not like the night, the people It's loud in the city and loud, in nature everything is different, it's quiet, I love awakening, when life starts again. "
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: If you love nature so much, then why live here in the middle of the city?
Gérard Depardieu: I need both. I like this corner of Paris. Intellectuals, foreigners live here, and there are many religious people. I like this mixture.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What do you mean by religious people?
Gérard Depardieu: I am religious without believing in a particular God. As a child I prayed a lot. There are nuns over there, living in a seventeenth-century building, and somehow they live as they used to, secluded from the world. You do not have a TV. I like talking to them.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What are you talking about?
Gérard Depardieu: About everything, about her garden, the weather and again about God, prayers, her reading. They live according to the rules of St. Augustine, whom I greatly adore. We discuss a lot, I want to know what convinces her. The matron is extremely well versed in theology, we both always have something to talk about.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: There has not been much talk in your family.
Gérard Depardieu: I'm not talking about my family.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Do you know the German word Heimat, which does not exist in French?
Gérard Depardieu: No, that does not tell me, what's that?
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Difficult, it's a way of life. Being where you come from or heard. This can be a house, but also people, a garden, a city.
Gérard Depardieu: I understand. No, no, I do not have that. Maybe sometimes I have those moments in which I like to stay to feel myself. I have it with books. Books are my home. I read Balzac completely in New York, Baudelaire in the desert. I am often on the road, often fleeing from houses that are full, even in front of people.
I have no diary and no phone book. The numbers that are important to me, I have all in mind.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What drives you? They are traveling a lot and could just be somewhere in all serenity.
Gérard Depardieu: No, I can not do that at all. I do not want to settle anywhere. I do not want to commit myself. I am not looking for closeness.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: How do you maintain connections?
Gérard Depardieu: Let me tell you something: I do not have a diary and no phone book. The numbers that are important to me, I have all in mind. I write letters. No email. That does not fascinate me at all. I love communication, talks, but real ones! (looks threatening)
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: You are one of the most revered actors in France, but it was a long way up. As a young boy you were laughed at school, even as a young man you could not talk properly. They stammered and were reluctant to open their mouths.
Gérard Depardieu: That's right. That's how it was. I had lost the language. We had a loud silence. Before I could talk, I learned to scream.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: How does someone who can not talk come up with the idea of becoming an actor?
Gérard Depardieu: Coincidence, I loitered around the train station, met a friend who went to Paris and said to me: "I'm going to drama school, come with me." Despite everything, I had a terrible urge for communication, I had to go to the theater sooner or later. Everyone was afraid of the stage. Not me. Play made me calm. Someone gave me words that I never had. I began to devour books, texts. There I was 17.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Critics say, you caress words, play with verses of Racine or Corneille. How did you do that, how did you even find out about it?
Gérard Depardieu: I had a wonderful teacher at the drama school in Paris, he sent me to an unusual doctor who treated me with Mozart. For months I listened to Mozart, always in different frequencies, gradually I became calmer. My disturbed speech was obviously related to a disturbed hearing. One day the knot burst.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Is that why one of your wines is called Cuvée Mozart?
Gérard Depardieu: No, no, a pretty idea. (Smiles)
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Is music a post-therapeutic matter for you?
Gérard Depardieu: No, I love her, she is divine. I love Mozart. If he should explain a sonata, he simply played it. That's awesome. His music is always new, depending on who interprets it, I hear another piece.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: When do you find the time for that?
Gérard Depardieu: Never. I never just listen to music, but I deal with music. When I'm working, as with Riccardo Muti at the Salzburg Festival.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Are you sometimes afraid to lose the language again?
Gérard Depardieu: I played an Alzheimer's patient in the movie "Small World" last year. The disease is terrible, but often more for the others than for the sick. But there are bright moments, moments of smiles. I met Alzheimer's patients, Annie Girardot (recently deceased actress, editor) is in the thick of it, she no longer recognizes anyone. Cruel, you can no longer find your way around the world, geographically and otherwise. I imagine that very painful. Difficult to be disabled in this way when you are used to freedom. If this happened to me, I would like to have an injection. I could not stand that, then I would rather go.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: I read you had an aunt who was suffering from Alzheimer's?
Gérard Depardieu: Yes, she was confused, running through the forest. I did not know that for a long time. One day I found a letter from my father in a warehouse, which he wrote in desperation to his mother. This letter is absolutely amazing. You must know, my father was practically illiterate, could not write. I showed the letter to my friend Marguerite Duras. "Look, this is from someone who can not read properly and can not write, how do you like the language?"
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Why Marguerite Duras, how did you know the writer?
Gérard Depardieu: That's a funny story. I was 19 and was supposed to play a child murderer in one play after one of her books.Margeruite wanted to meet me. So I went to her, I looked like a hippie, had long hair. She was tiny. Later, she told me why I should visit her: she wanted to see if I'm one to be scared of.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: And was she scared?
Gérard Depardieu: Yes, exactly. After that I read all the books from her.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: And then you were probably afraid?
Gérard Depardieu: No, no, I admired her. We became friends.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What did Duras say about your father's letter?
Gérard Depardieu: She was impressed, it was a language with its own codifications, a language that perhaps only a mother can understand - and a father, if he is there.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Was that the same between you and your mother?
Gérard Depardieu: That does not matter. I do not want to talk about my family. I have enough of it.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: You started with the family.
Gérard Depardieu: I prefer to talk generally about sensations.
I like Sunday, there is silence, then I cook, drive motorbike. I love to feel the wind and just drive off.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: We've just talked about Alzheimer's patients, these people have no sense of time. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, all this is foreign to them. Is time, transience a topic that occupies you? They do so much, so much else. Are you worried about missing something?
Gérard Depardieu: No, no. I have always been very, very curious. On everything. That's why I do so much.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: The fact that you are buying houses, renovating an old one and building a new one has something to do with the future, perhaps with your own?
Gérard Depardieu: The future does not interest me. I will not live here, I love the emergence, the process of growth. When everything is ready, I look for something new, then I move on. I need space. (He reaches far out and points to the naked room)
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: At the beginning of our conversation, you said books were your home. Is there anything else that you are hanging on?
Gérard Depardieu: I do not even have a cupboard, I do not need a possession. I travel without luggage. Pants and my books, that's all I need.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: You live alone, on a construction site, surrounded by people who always want something from you. How do you handle that?
Gérard Depardieu: Good. You can see that. I like Sunday, there is silence, then I cook, drive motorbike. I love to feel the wind and just drive off. Or I draw, make sculptures, which I give away, if they please someone.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Do you like your movies?
Gérard Depardieu: I never look at them when they're done, it's over. Then comes the next one. Ending something scares me, I would like to stop before the end.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What makes you happy?
Gérard Depardieu: Much. Very much. A wine, a flower in the fall, a sunrise. Playing, that fills me deeply. Playing together with others. Or a conversation. I prefer talking to women rather than men. Men usually have nothing great to say. I've learned everything from women - from the poets Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute, the actress Jeanne Moreau, the singer Barbara. They are my heroines.
As he talks, drilling and hammering in the background does not bother him, he does not even seem to notice. Until another craftsman shows up. He must speak to him urgently. Immediately. Depardieu asks for understanding.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Just one more question, when do you like a woman?
Gérard Depardieu: (He laughs loud and enthusiastic.) When she stops asking questions.
Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Depardieu was born on 27 December 1948 in Châteauroux as the third of six children. At the age of 13, he starts a printer training and learns to box. He is considered defiant and difficult. In 1965 a friend takes him to Paris for drama school. His life begins. Depardieu has been considered one of the great French and European actors ever for decades. He can do everything and play everything: Cyrano, Asterix, Rodin; Lovers, desperate, workers, bourgeoisie, outsiders - a total of more than 180 films. He was once married and has four children. His son Guillaume died three years ago at the age of 37. Depardieu owns vineyards, u. a. in France, Spain, Morocco, Argentina. He lives as he works: excessively.
Two books about and by Gérard Depardieu:
"Culinary Festival: Gérard Depardieu meets Roland Trettl", Collection Rolf Heyne, 352 p., 58 Euro.
Gérard Depardieu: "Stolen Letters (Lettres Volées)". In the late 80s, the actor begins to write letters - to his mother, friends, family. He wanted to destroy them, they became a book. A little treasure, only to find antiquarian.
