"I remembered my own adolescence": François Berléand arrives in the new season of "The Replacement" with JoeyStarr on TF1

François Berléand is often referred to as the Stakhanovite of French cinema, given the 73-year-old actor's extensive filmography.

It's quite simple: you have to scroll for several minutes on his Wikipedia page to see his long list of achievements in cinema, on screen and on stage.

A CV to which we must add his participation in the third season of The Substitute , which arrives this Monday on TF1 and in which he plays Bernard Audoin, an atypical parent representative, who oscillates between his own interests and those of the high school where his granddaughter attends.

A Brest establishment that welcomes a substitute French teacher, Nicolas Valeyre, played by JoeyStarr.

"Even though the series is already two seasons old, since we change schools each time, it's like a reset," says François Berléand. "I knew the director Stéphanie Murat because I worked with her father, Bernard. I didn't feel like I was arriving on an unknown machine, already launched."

To play Bernard Audouin, a big-hearted grandfather who experiences a beautiful redemption over the course of six episodes, François Berléand drew slightly on his daily life as a father of high school twin girls.

Immerse yourself in your personal history

"My daughters are the same age as the actress who plays my granddaughter in the series, they are in high school, in the first year of high school, I saw them go through that adolescent moment where you go from childhood to a big little person, it's a pivotal moment. And then I remembered my own adolescence, everything that was going on in my head," he continues.

In a high-profile cast, François Berléand will be reunited with an old acquaintance: Clémentine Célarié. "We played together in La Femme secrète in 1986, then in Le Siffleur and Le gendre idéal , she has already been my fiction mistress several times," laughs the actor. "We were both on familiar ground, especially since I am very relaxed on set, I laugh constantly, with a real appetite for rehearsal comedy, it's my trademark."

Although he constantly moves from one play to a film or a television project, François Berléand has had few recurring roles on television, with the exception of the brilliant series Le Bureau , a French adaptation of The Office . "I loved this series, but we were scheduled for the wrong slot, during the 2006 World Cup, and the public didn't find the way..." , he recalls.

Recently, he flew to Bulgaria to shoot a wacky project for Simon Astier based on a parody of SWAT. "The police force is called NUS, but we constantly refer to it as the NUS... it leads to intentional, improbable puns, and we had to manage to keep a straight face during the scenes, it was brilliant. Second degree with a repetitive comedy that I love."

The Caesar in a guest room

An actor since the late 1970s, Berléand had to wait before becoming an actor capable of playing a leading role in a successful film. " My Idol with Guillaume Canet was a turning point for the general public, but before that I had won a César in 2000 for My Little Business , which came after Seventh Heaven and Romance , two important films in my career," he rewinds.

His Caesar? It sits enthroned in a guest room in his home. "It's on the mantelpiece in the guest room, a room no one goes into or sees," he smiles.

Affable, joyful, curious, Berléand gives the impression of being open to everything and afraid of nothing. Except for sequence shots. "It's the only thing, with theater because it's without a safety net, that terrifies me. Especially if you have to intervene at the end of a sequence shot, when everyone has perfectly recited their part and then, you arrive at the end of the loop, and you can screw everything up, can you imagine the pressure?", he says, confessing that he recently discovered the series Adolescence , on Netflix, and that the four episodes filmed in sequence shot and in real time have really shaken him up.