Let It Rain : Interview with Jamel Debbouze


What was your reaction on reading the screenplay of LET’S TALK ABOUT THE RAIN?
I said to myself: “That’s great, at last I can be part of their family!” I’ve always dreamed of that, and now they’re offering it to me on a silver platter, with a character made to measure. The character of Karim is like me; he’s not far from me.

Karim is a role written for you but you’ve never been seen before in such a moving register...
I’ve never played an adult, above all. But that’s why I say it was tailor-made: they knew me well; they knew I’d be up to it. Agnès and Jean-Pierre are very attentive and kindly towards me, they really like me, they know what moves me.
We’re friends in real life, with all that that implies. They looked for things in me that they like. I have a childish side, of course, and I hope I’ll keep it all my life. But on this film, I felt myself becoming a man, with all the questioning and the unease which that supposes, and which until now I had preferred to bury. I used to think I was in a sort of permanent funfair and Agnès and Jean-Pierre brought me out of that. I was already aware of all that, I’m kidding a bit. But what is true is that I’d never had the opportunity to act that.

How did you experience this “passage to adulthood”?
It was hard, it was a question of blocking my excesses; those natural reflexes that we all have. Whenever there’s a camera, I straightaway act the pretty boy or the hoodlum: I just have to frown and I look like a bad guy! Agnès, instead, tried to soften me, make me more feminine. She is sensitive in a way I like; she knows how to draw the best out of you for a scene. She has a softness, a way of listening; she knows how to reassure you. I never heard her become irritated, she’s always constructive in her criticism. She comes up with ideas straight away, which allows you to resolve a situation, to get over an obstacle. Because she’s an actress herself, she goes straight to the essentials. And she always has Jean-Pierre nearby. There is such complicity between them. She knows what she wants and he always has a little something to add, which he murmurs delicately in her ear. She gets a little annoyed, they talk, and in the end... They agree! And you just get the distillation of their ideas, it’s the best seat in the house: two great actors who have put their minds together to give you directions for acting. Agnès and Jean-Pierre are like a pair of conductors with their score. They have written their screenplay, they experience it, hear how it sounds. It’s music. There mustn’t be any off notes, and at the same time, they give you full latitude to find the right key. Working with them is sheer pleasure. You have the feeling of being in real life. Except there’s a camera and a director of photography nearby, which almost make you want to say: “Could you leave us alone? I’m living life here!” With them, I really experienced acting real life.

From the start of the film, when you are seen in the same shot with Jean-Pierre Bacri, you can sense an incredible chemistry.
You wouldn’t necessarily put Jean-Pierre and me together, but I’ve always felt very close to him. It’s cultural and physical: we’re two Semites side by side, Jean-Pierre could be an uncle, a big brother. I’ve had a few important relationships in my life, but with him it’s really special. I take everything he has to offer like a gift. I like his mental construction; I like his heart, his way of looking at things. Agnès is cast from exactly the same die. They are complementary. I think of them as part of my family. I haven’t had the opportunity to tell them, but there we are: now they know. A family with whom I have discussions about the job, the relationship with success, about life, family, culture. Putting their trust in me as they did with this film has made me progress hugely. Even before I knew them, Jaoui and Bacri’s cinema already made me question myself because they succeed in depicting people in all their complexity. You can identify with their characters, you could run into them in the street, and seeing them in the cinema brings us face-to-face with ourselves.

Karim at one point talks about “everyday humiliation”. Could this expression sum up the heart of the film?
What touched me right away with Agnès and Jean-Pierre is that one day I arrived late at a restaurant because I had just been stopped by the police, which has happened to me a thousand times. I told them the story to explain my lateness. And in that situation, there are those who don’t believe you, and those


who laugh and say: “That kind of thing always happens to you.” And then there are those who don’t laugh but who get annoyed, just like it annoyed you at the time it happened: that’s Agnès and Jean-Pierre.

Between us, we talk a lot about everyday humiliation, the racism of the baker who serves the little old white lady ahead of the black kid. That kind of condescending behavior is the most pernicious today and it’s essential to expose it. I am in a very advantaged position but I still suffer everyday humiliation at times. Can you imagine what it’s like for others? It’s our daily routine, a common experience, but it is still dangerous, nasty, and it hurts. I like the way Agnès and Jean-Pierre handle this 20th century evil: they stop and look at the detail because the devil is in the detail. They haven’t got preconceived ideas about it; they never cease to scrutinize humanity.

Everyday humiliation is most in evidence for Karim, but all the other characters also experience it in different ways.
Of course. That’s what I like about their way of looking at life and writing: they have understood that man is an animal in the jungle and that being in civilization, behaving with civility, requires an effort. The theme of the film is kindliness: making the effort to ask yourself what is the matter with someone else, and respecting his space for living.