"I have no antipathy for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, but I don't agree with his vision of society": Fabrice Luchini, soon to be at Anthéa, defends the French language with a show about Victor Hugo

Why are you on stage at Anthéa so often?

The determination and tenacity of Anthéa's director, Daniel Benoin, have a lot to do with it. I also found an audience in Antibes that was remarkably attentive. It's a place that scares me a little because the room is so big. It's no small feat to bring so many people together for three nights...

Choosing Hugo, choosing poetry may seem audacious in 2025. Yet, you're a hit...

It's my great surprise. I started in a tiny room, with 180 seats. We quickly had to find one with 450 seats, then 600, then 1,000. And it's been going on for a year and a half...

How do you explain it?

It's a miracle. I can still put forward a hypothesis. French people who love culture need to know what they can hold onto. They are intrinsically French, not by birth, but by language.

This language is the language of geniuses, ranging from François Villon to Molière, via Racine, Corneille, Cocteau, Yasmina Reza... In the room, there are all kinds of people, all walks of life, the bourgeoisie, the modest, people from the left, people from the right. Why are they there? For this passion for the French language and because we are a literary country.

Last week, Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared that the French language no longer belongs to France. He even proposed renaming it Creole. What does that mean to you?

Politicians are like mutts and actors. They always have to find something to get people talking about them, to invent slogans. Politicians don't interest me for many reasons. First of all, you have to be very neurotic to feel like you know what to do. I never know what to do. I'm unsure, even about whether to have coffee or tea. My thing is hesitation, uncertainty, and rather depression. So, I could never be a politician.

I have no antipathy for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, but I don't agree with his vision of society. I think exactly the opposite. I'm reminded of a very beautiful quote from Céline. "Far from French, I die." I really like Creole. And I like all languages. But there is something unique, a miracle that goes back a long way, in the French language. It comes from Villon, it passed through the greatest poets of the Middle Ages, and it reached a form of perfection in its mastery in the 17th century.

And later, it was revolutionized by this genius, Victor Hugo. And someone comes along and says that there is no history of language! I don't care whether it's Creole or not. What interests me is the score. It's as if we were saying that Bach no longer exists, that Mozart no longer exists... What interests me is to serve Bach and to serve Mozart.

Le Monde wrote that with this show about Hugo, you are making a pact with genius. How did you react to this article?

I was overwhelmed. You have two or three roles like that in your life. This astonishing sentence is beyond me, but I obviously like it. I don't want to play the false modesty, but I don't believe it either because practicing theater keeps you humble. Every night, the room is different, you have to win over the audience, live up to the text. You can't have a big head.

Will your show be adapted for the cinema?

This won't be an adaptation, but a fictional story written by Sophie Fillières, who sadly passed away two years ago. She told her children that she wanted this film to be made. She had wanted to imagine a fictional story about a man named Robert Luchini, not Fabrice Luchini. I'm going to England to finish filming in Guernsey under the direction of Pascal Bonitzer.

Do you have other projects?

I'm going to follow up with another Martin Provost film with Carole Bouquet, Chiara Mastroianni, and Emmanuelle Devos. The story of a man overwhelmed by the women around him. It's a golden role. When I faint on the beach, the women fight to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation...

What does Fabrice Luchini's summer look like?

I'm going to try to take a little vacation in Provence, but it'll be a studious summer. I have no aptitude for pleasure. I have to work. I can't spend entire evenings drinking aperitifs. I'd love to, but it doesn't suit me. It's weird, I suffer from it at times, then I tell myself it's not so bad...