Happy event (TFX) – Louise Bourgoin: "Before the movie, I never felt like a mother."

Given the plot of the movie, a question arises: do you like children?

Louise Burgundy: Before the shoot, I had very little time. From the very beginning, I told Rémi Bezançon that as soon as I took the baby in my arms, she would start crying. It made him laugh. I understood because I conveyed to them my stress and the agony of doing something bad, a bit like my character Barbara. I had never felt like a mother before the movie. I say in the past tense because it is no longer so. I pretended to be a Marie-Antoinette with a baby brought, played the scene, and thank you, goodbye! All turned out wrong. A child needs to feel loved. I started playing with them between shoots and everything changed.

How did you prepare to play this young mother?

A midwife introduced me to many pregnant women. I also attended a lot of deliveries: I really needed to learn as the scene in the movie was almost twenty minutes long.

Inspired by Éliette Abécassis’ novel, this comedy dynamits the delightful stereotypes that often surround birth. Here it’s more like “they got married and lived happily ever after…until the baby came”. Did this iconoclastic approach seduce you?

For Eliette, the child is the enemy of the couple! But what really appealed to me about the project was that it required a full commitment. A rare occurrence in cinema, where female roles are often stereotyped. During the previews, all the audience said to me: “This is my life! They found themselves in Barbara’s mishaps. A very guilt-free mirror film for moms. Men also said they better understand how their wives are feeling.

Being a mother to disgust you…

Not possible! I always want to have children. Although not up to date at the moment, I asked a lot of questions for me as well as for the role.

Don’t you miss the TV and the adrenaline of live broadcast?

For two months I felt a physical lack. Every evening (Presented the weather on the set of the Grand Journal, editor’s note), the stress felt like an adrenaline rush. Although I had a lot of fun, I don’t regret it. I loved writing texts, I met great people, but the speed of the cinema suits me better.

Despite the successive roles, do you still see yourself in what you call “education”?

Still ! I talked about this with François Cluzet. To him, there is nothing more old-fashioned than a gaming pro, you should never be too sure of yourself. Many good actors didn’t go to school. Benoît Poelvoorde and Dany Boon also studied Fine Arts like me.

Interviewed by Julien Barcilon in 2011

A happy event: Wednesday, July 27th at 21:05 TFX