Interview: Jean Dujardin talks The Artist

He’s the handsome devil in the pencil moustache, staring out in classic black-and-white from the posters of The Artist all over town. If you’re asking yourself, ‘Who is that guy?’, the chances are you’re not French, since Jean Dujardin is big news across the Channel. He’s a popular comedian who’s moved into drama and is reputedly the country’s highest-paid male performer. The movie is making headlines too, since this mightily entertaining comedy-romance is gathering momentum as an outside bet contender for next year’s Oscars.

The buzz isn’t just idle chatter: Dujardin winning Best Actor at Cannes in May was the start; The Artist taking Best Film from the New York film critics in November was the latest chapter. It makes a great celluloid underdog story, not least since this Hollywood-set French production stars people the Academy have never heard of, is in black and white, and is silent.

Dujardin is savvy enough not to be talking up his chances. Today in a London hotel suite, he’s stubbly and dressed down, casting a different figure from the dashing (and fictional) silent-era icon George Valentin on screen. That he so obviously looks the part as an old-school movie-star has prompted suggestions he could be Hollywood-bound himself. But the 39 year old is sceptical, to say the least. ‘All these people talk and talk like I’m not in the room,’ he says. ‘They tell me the world is yours and you just have to grasp it, but… I dunno… I’m not sure I’m megalomaniac enough for all that.’

In the course of the next 40 minutes, it becomes evident it’s not lack of ambition which prompts such comments, but a dedication to his craft, a tendency towards self-analysis and the recognition that he’s doing pretty well for himself as it stands. ‘In France, I have lots of opportunities. Maybe now I’ll be offered films in America, or wherever, but I live well, my kids are happy and it’s not false modesty to say I don’t really need more.’

Indeed, for Dujardin it’s been quite a journey already, graduating from long-running TV show Un Gars, Une Fille to knockabout movies – surfer pic Brice de Nice and two outings as spoof Gallic secret agent OSS 117 – which made his name as a French box office draw, before earning a new level of respect at Cannes with The Artist. Kudos, by the way, entirely deserved since his performance as Valentin, the silent Hollywood idol who thinks he’s too big for the new fad called ‘talkies’, is effortlessly charismatic, drawing us from light-hearted charm to dark territory as the protagonist’s fortunes slide. Writer-director Michel Hazanavicius’s film is intelligent and affectionate in its play with form and rendering of vintage Tinseltown, but what makes it sing is the spell cast by Dujardin and leading lady Bérenice Bejo, as the extra who falls for him.

‘It was always about the story rather than the character,’ reflects Dujardin. ‘In terms of research, I knew Chaplin and Keaton, but the discovery was seeing silent cinema, dramas like Sunrise and The Crowd, which were more minimal and had a real purity of performance. Valentin is based on Douglas Fairbanks, who was very happy in his own skin and content to make the same pantomime movie again and again. It was good to know there was another silent acting style to help build a bridge to modern audiences.’

Admitting to a degree of surprise at the warmth of the response, Dujardin shows little sign of getting caught up in the hype. ‘I’ve never concerned myself with the labels people want to put on you,’ he reckons. ‘What matters to me is my own estimation, and I’m very tough on myself. I need to be proud of what I’ve done and I work hard for it. I had a very Christian upbringing… lots of guilt. A good thing, It keeps you sane.

‘It’s quite pretentious, really, isn’t it? The notion the audience is going to be interested in you for an hour and a half. Think too much about that and anxiety takes over. I’m happiest on set because I’m not myself. I’m someone else. The moustache, the dinner jacket. It’s not me. You’re always this sort of double, and it’s liberating. Imagine being stuck with yourself… all those doubts…’

Behind the insouciant façade then, there’s obviously some fairly gnarled introspection going on. Something which, I suggest to him, is not uncommon among those with a decided comic gift. Steve Martin, say… ‘Yes, and Jim Carrey too,’ he continues, without any suggestion that he’s making comparisons. ‘I guess we’re all lucky to be in this profession where you can be someone else for two or three months on a film shoot. I find it restful. Vachement agréable.’

All this openness is delivered with a bonhomie that’s quite disarming, but when I mention that I’d read a French interview where he admitted to seeing a shrink, he makes a point of checking the source. ‘It’s funny that,’ he lightens up again. ‘I saw the guy twice, and then he had to admit he could do nothing for me. You’ll sort it out, he said. So I took that as confirmation my problems weren’t that serious. In fact, he recently sent me a prescription slip with the inscription “Bravo l’Artiste!”…’

So, that settles it then. Whichever byway Jean Dujardin’s profession takes him down in future, his head is definitely screwed on straight.

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