TAHAR RAHIM CRASH 64

By Crash redaction

Introduced to audiences and the industry in Jacques Audiard’s hugely successful “The Prophet”, Tahar Rahim has since kept right on building his stellar career. This year he is starring in two films that are among the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. He plays the lead role in the new film by Asghar Farhadi, director of “A Separation”, and also in Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Grand Central”, competing in the Un Certain Regard section.

Two of your films are competing at Cannes this year…

That’s right. First there is “The Past”, which is a difficult film to describe. It has all the characteristic features of an Asghar Farhadi film, like love, death, illness, divorce, separation, children and their relationships with their parents. It’s a deep and masterful film about life. I’m proud to be going to Cannes with this team and this director, because he’s a great person. We did great work together.

How did you meet Asghar Farhadi?

We met two years ago when “A Separation” was released. He told me about his movie, “About Elly”, gave me the DVD, and invited me to see “A Separation”. I fell in love with his work right away. I loved “A Separation” and thought Asghar Farhadi was undeniably great. We spoke briefly about the screenplay for a film we were going to do together. Then we met again and he told me about a different project. So we got to work and did a lot of rehearsals. What’s interesting is how Asghar Farhadi uses techniques from theater to put his films together. He takes the best of theater and film and creates his own kind of art. Since I was already shooting Rebecca Zlotowski’s film at the time, we could only meet on weekends to rehearse. It was only at the last rehearsal that I finally saw Ali Mosaffa rehearsing the Ahmad character. It was part of Farhadi’s strategy to have us meet at the last rehearsal before shooting. Farhadi taught me a whole new way of working where actors know exactly what they’re doing in each scene down to the slightest detail so they can express precise emotions. It’s a very controlled way of working.

What else was involved in your acting method?

We did a lot of unfilmed rehearsals where we focused on how we moved and tried to memorize every detail. Then we did filmed rehearsals with our dialogue where we really started acting. Once we planned all of our movements, memorized our dialogue, and put everything in its proper place, then we started to work on expressing emotion. All of a sudden, we had maybe twenty-five different directions for shots lasting about seven minutes.

Where was the film shot?

In film studio in Paris and a house in Aulnay- sous-Bois.

Asghar Farhadi is an Iranian director, but this is a French production…

That’s right. And he doesn’t even speak French! But thanks to the great work of our interpreter I was able to speak with him directly. The film was shot in French, and Asghar Farhadi is extremely interested in French culture, having come to Paris a few months earlier. He observed how French people behave, listened to the rhythms of the French language, and saw how emotions were expressed: it’s true that French culture internalizes a lot more and expresses things indirectly, while the Persian language tends to embellish a little more. And I don’t think there are any other directors out there who make social thrillers like he does. You’re on the edge of your seat with all the plot twists in his films, just like with a thriller, and you always end up being fooled about what’s happening. That’s what I like about his work: he challenges viewers and makes them reflect on their own judgments. It’s easy to judge characters at first glance, but less easy when they turn out to be more complex.

What’s your other film at Cannes?

It’s Rebecca Zlotwoski’s film “Grand Central”, her second after «Belle Epine». It’s a kind of impossible love story between a young man named Gary, played by me, who needs a job and gets one at a power plant. At the plant he meets a group of people who become a kind of family for him. He’s a fast learner who succeeds in most of the things he tries to do. All of a sudden he falls in love with a young girl named Karole, played by Léa Seydoux, who’s married to a man named Toni, played by Denis Ménochet, and that’s where the story and the morale come in: what can love do to us? How far will we fall for love? And then there’s this parallel between radiation poisoning at the power plant and love as a kind of poison. On the whole it’s technically well-done, kind of nervous and original, a great film. Since I just saw the film two days ago, it’s hard for me to say anything coherent about it, especially since I’m still under the spell of its emotion. I really liked it. There aren’t enough films like it in French cinema! It’s dynamic, it’s young, it’s a total success.

Do you have any interest in doing movies that are more « commercial »?

I haven’t done any movies like that yet, but I would like to. The thing is I have to be interested in the movie, it has to say something, it has to have some kind of meaning. “The Intouchables” is a good example because it managed to combine a good story, real emotions, and something very smart with something also very commercial, very popular, and very funny. I would have enjoyed playing either the disabled character or his friend. I really liked the movie, and it’s the kind of movie I would like to do to combine commercial success with something that helps me grow as an actor.

Have you considered working in Hollywood?

Of course. I would love to work in Hollywood, especially because there a lot of great directors there. I’ve already received a few interesting offers, but none of them were quite for me so I had to refuse them. There are certain things I don’t want to do on film. Not to disparage some aspects of American cinema, but I don’t want to play a terrorist, whether he’s good or bad. I say that because it’s an offer I’ve already received.

Why don’t you want to play a terrorist?

It’s not that I’m against it. On the contrary I’m all for it if it provides a different perspective on terrorism, then I may even do the role. I don’t want to do any of the typical bad guy or good guy clichés. I also received an offer to do a kind of French lover role, but I thought it was too hollow. I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t really see myself in the part. Then I got an offer to play a bad guy in an historical film, but I refused because I knew the film wouldn’t live up to my expectations. I would rather wait for a role that I’m really excited about.

Do you have an agent in Hollywood?

I do have an agent there, but I don’t want to make any mistakes or commit to projects that aren’t right for me. Vincent Cassel is successful in Hollywood because he does great projects and takes good roles. Marion Cotillard also manages to do the international stardom thing right. But things haven’t been so brilliant for other French actors who shall remain nameless…

What are you working on right now?

It’s a film by Fatih Akin, who did “The Edge of Heaven”, “Head-On”, and “Soul Kitchen”. The new film, “The Cut”, is an epic story about a father in the 1920s and the historical events that tear him away from his two daughters who are about ten years old. He scours the world looking for them for eight years, crossing two continents from the Middle East to Cuba and the United States. But, again, I can’t say more without giving too much away!

How did you get your start in film?

I’m originally from Belfort, a little town in eastern France, and I’ve wanted to work in film since I was a teen. But eighty percent of teens want to be actors, mostly for the fame and how they imagine the lifestyle. There wasn’t much to do in Belfort… So I spent most of my time at the movie theater and that’s how I got so interested in film. I saw a lot of movies and eventually I figured out what questions I liked best about film: what kinds of stories can film tell? Why? What is a film? What is its value as a medium of expression? But I didn’t commit to film right away because I was pretty lost. First I went to Strasbourg for sports, then to Marseille to study computers. Then I understood that film was an art, so I went to film school in Montpellier. Once I finished that, I went to Paris with just a backpack and nothing else. My goal wasn’t to direct but to act in films. I wanted to understand film: I needed to know what it meant. I wanted to understand everything about a film, and not just act in it. I wanted to know what it was all for. It’s a passion for me.

Did you also take acting classes while you were in film school?

No. Only a short theater class that was required for my film school. For me, the best education comes from people: life, cities, and movies. But theater has done a lot for me, since I later took classes in Paris for nearly two years.

Did you have some support in the beginning?

My friend Cyril Mennegun helped me a lot. He made a docufiction called “Tahar l’étudiant” about the lack of social stability among students. I’ve known him since I was seventeen and he’s done a lot for me. I had a lot of fantasies at first, I was really naïve, but it’s necessary, I think. I’m happy I had those fantasies that helped me find my way.