We met Helena Noguerra, clan leader in M6's new daily series, "New Day"

It takes a lot to impress us. We've met Harrison Ford, Quentin Tarantino, Robin Wright, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, and even Joey Starr. And yet, it's Helena Noguerra who has managed, just a little, to impress us.

Incredibly beautiful, the 56-year-old actress oscillates between a form of natural grace and a constant simplicity. It was in Monte-Carlo, at the heart of the Grimaldi Forum during the last TV Festival, that we met her when she came to promote the new daily series on M6, Nouveau jour , in which she plays the main role, Louise Bartoli.

This new family saga, with a strong cast (Jean-Baptiste Maunier, Mhamed Arezki, Alexandre Varga, Vincent Desagnat, Laëtitia Milot, Bruno Solo), focuses on the Domaine Bartoli, a luxury hotel in the South of France where family secrets will quickly tear the entire clan apart.

The estate becomes the target of attacks by a strange crow. Torn between family ties and personal ambitions, anything becomes possible for the members of the Bartoli clan and their entourage.

What did you like about this French soap?

I was curious about a new experience. That is to say, up until then, I had tasted a lot of things, and I arrived at a point in my life where the routine I had established, I knew it. A record, a film, a series, a subsidized play, a commercial series, a film. I knew my destiny. And this one, I didn't know it. And I said to myself, hey, this is an experience. Me, who is very hungry for experiences, how does a soap work? How do you make it? What is it like to become the heroine of a soap? What is it like to not have an ending, something closed? So I liked it. And also to settle down a little. Because a life like the one we lead, these are the lives of acrobats, these are the lives of travelers. And therefore also the desire to put something down, one's luggage for a while.

How do you build a character when you don't know their ending?

Louise Bartoli is a clan leader. She's really a godfather, or rather, now we'll say a godmother. And we have to understand godmother in that sense. She's really a matriarch who holds the clan together. I, secretly, was thinking of Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders . And when I think of Louise, I imagine myself as an actress in an Almodóvar film. So there are these two ambivalences between something very pop and something very controlled. Deep down, Louise Bartoli is a gangster. She's someone who seems lawless, although she has her own justice and her own sincerity. But she's still a woman. Strong.

This is your first daily, what about the work rhythm?

It's crazy. You're really in a washing machine. And you have to learn to breathe. We've been shooting for 9 weeks now, so I've gotten used to it. But at the beginning, it's very impressive. Films are closed, and even if you get on the bike and put your head down, there comes a point when it ends. And here, in fact, it never ends. Every two weeks, you receive 40-50 pages to learn. It's dizzying. Nevertheless, at a certain point, you know the character. That is to say, you're kind of the boss, after a while. And that too is a pretty fantastic experience.

How do you feel before this big leap into the unknown that is broadcasting on M6?

We're stressed, we're excited. And then, I pretend, since I'm a little pretentious (laughs), that we've done something great and that people are going to love it. I'm moving forward with confidence. It's a competitive sector, the daily series, we have our part, we do completely different things. But we have to offer something that people don't see elsewhere.

When you were younger, you always had an artistic streak in you. At what point did you realize that your life was going to be "acrobatical," as you said earlier?

I believe very early on. But in hindsight, it's my theory, I think that artists are misfits. We're misfits when it comes to actually forming a group. That is to say, we can form a group with a function, but there's a difficulty. We can't go and work under someone's orders. There's a kind of misfit insubordination that means the solution is to become an artist. So there are all kinds of artists. There are those in the streets, there are those in big business, the big players, etc. There are plenty of economies, there are plenty of ways to become an artist, to get by, etc. But there's a form of misfit. So I think I was already misfit at school too. Indomitable too (laughs). There's a form of rebellion against authority. And at the same time, for example, at school, I had a passion for my teachers. But I felt like their equal. That is to say, I had the pretension, very humble, but still, I looked at them and I felt like their equal. I wasn't afraid to confront them, to talk to them. And I said to myself, I can be them (laughs).

>> New day , Monday to Friday at 8:35 p.m., on M6.5