Poelvoorde, Amalric, Katerine … they threw themselves into "the Big Bath"!

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Flashback. Last May we announced the official selection of the 71st Cannes Film Festival. Its general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, suddenly has a sharp eye. He is preparing to announce the presence, out of competition of course, but all the same, the "Grand Bain", a Full Monty French with a casting splash, signed Gilles Lellouche, until then always supported in his achievements ("Narcos ", " The unfaithful ").

The audience is surprised. But happy. All announces that we will laugh and, on the Croisette kneaded with tears and tragedies, these are not things that refuse. In fact, we laughed a lot. Standing ovation. Actors on the verge of emotional "collapse", carried by a wave of applause.

"We all watched Gilles Lellouche and we were so happy for him," said Mathieu Amalric, one of seven male characters, lost in their lives, embarked on this improbable synchronized swimming story for … men. Until the world championships in Norway.

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Julie Fabre, coach of the women's Olympic team, has managed a feat: to ensure that her flock, directed in the film by Virginie Efira, so just and moving, and Leïla Bekhti, irresistible in dragon spewing flames, reproduce the gestures and the harmony of a discipline that required three months of training.

Each actor, with a strong temperament and not always adequate physique – the buoys were not necessarily made of plastic – gives this unexpected film a human truth that speaks with infinite tenderness to masculine conditions – also feminine – dented. Let's pull down our swim cap to Gilles Lellouche and his Olympic team. We went to ask these big fish of chlorinated water how they had lived this adventure.

Benoît Poelvoorde: "We were not arrows"

- "clbad =" article-full__figure-image article-full__figure-image_all "/></figure> </div> <p><i>Benoît Poelvoorde, of face./StudioCbad </i></p> <p>When asked what sport he usually practices, Poelvoorde has this pithy answer: "zero". Moreover, by accepting the proposal of Gilles Lellouche, the actor of 54 years did not know that the training would be "as hard". "In addition, we were not arrows," Benoît Poelvoorde says. The most difficult, according to him, was to "stay in the air in the big bath".</p> <p>"And I, I have problems with my right and left," admits the one who also remembers to have had "irritated skin" by spending hours in the pool. The actor badures, however, having laughed a lot with his partners: "To find each other in swimming trunks, that facilitates the relations. And we knew we were doing this for the good cause. Since the shooting, Poelvoorde has not returned to the water, but "The Big Bath" has "given him pleasure to watch synchronized swimming": "I became very appreciative of these athletes".</p> <h2 clbad=Mathieu Amalric: "We were in non-judgment"

He was leaving with one step ahead. "Driven by (his) mother", Mathieu Amalric had done swimming competitions when he was a teenager. "It has nothing to do with it," says the 52-year-old comedian. Synchronized swimming is dance. It takes good muscular tone, but you must also be graceful. The actor remembers these girls who were training at the same time as they "eight hours a day, like good sisters" …

It retains a lighter impression of these "two to three times a week in the pool of Insep (Editor's note: National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance) for four or five months ". "There was so much fun," he says. We were very supportive. And since we were shooting at night, there was a closeness, a generosity and a very strong listening. The charm of the film is also in the pathos of our flabby bodies. So everyone was doing what he could, we were in non-judgment. We were like a small community, like in a cloakroom … "

Thamilchelvan Balasingham: "I did not know how to swim before shooting"

- "clbad =" article-full__figure-image article-full__figure-image_all "/></figure> </div> <p><i>Thamilchelvan Balasingham, lower left./StudioCbad </i></p> <p>He was spotted while the production was doing a casting in the Indian community, where he organized singing competitions. This is his picture that seduced Gilles Lellouche. "I immediately said that I knew how to float, but not to swim," says Thamilchelvan. I grew up in Sri Lanka where I never saw a single pool and I arrived in France at the age of 15. But I had never been to a bath where I did not have a foot. "</p> <p>Before embarking on "The Big Bath", the one who is also computer scientist has taken about twenty individual swimming lessons. And he then trained "twice as much as the others" to be at the level: "For six months, I went to Insep three times a week. I had to learn to dive and swim underwater. The hard part was apnea. I never managed to hold more than 35-40 seconds, while some, like Alban (Ivanov) or Guillaume (Canet) held 1 minute 30 … And I could not stand the nose clip! "</p> <p>Thamil says he did not "lose a gram" during filming, but he was proud when his wife and children discovered his performances at a preview: "They were sure I had a liner ".</p> <h2 clbad=Jean-Hugues Anglade: "Trouble doing the star"

"The hardest thing was to tap into my resources to make progress in this area, given the relatively short time allotted. Because we do not become a synchronized dance champion in the space of three months. For me, the most important question was to keep my weight vertical in the water. As soon as I lost my footing, I lost my means, unable to respect the choreography. It's dance too. It was not easy for me to make a figure called the star, or do the board while moving your arms naturally. "

"We were really faced with the discovery of a sport that is also an art. But we hung on, and to each other too. It was sometimes a lot of fun. In swimming, I manage and especially I dive well. In this respect, I always dipped in a precise and satisfactory way. I do not deny that to make a film like this, you have to have a little taste of adventure! "

Philippe Katerine: "The problem was diaper rash"

- "clbad =" article-full__figure-image article-full__figure-image_all "/></figure> </div> <p><i>Philippe Katerine, to the right of Benoît Poelvoorde./StudioCbad </i></p> <p>"I'm a loner, the main difficulty was to live in a group even though I played basketball for 10 years, but it went very well. Otherwise, I had already done choreography on stage, not that I was made for that, but it did not scare me. The most embarrbading thing was all about the water. Diaper rash, that kind of thing. And of course the smell of chlorine that was extremely painful. But this is the case for everyone I think. "</p> <p>"I'm not a good swimmer at all. This is not my element at all! At the end of a month, I went with pleasure to the trainings. We barely introduced ourselves and found at the edge of the pelvis in underpants. There have been evaluations of our performance. It was not glorious …! I plunged into an animal. On instinct. "</p> <p><strong/></p> <p><iframe src=

EDITOR'S NOTE: 5/5

"The Big Bath", French comedy by Gilles Lellouche, with Mathieu Amalric, Guillaume Canet, Benoit Poelvoorde, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Philippe Katerine, Alban Ivanov, Balasingham Thamilchevan, Leila Bekhti, Virginie Efira, Marina Fois … 2h02.

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