Pierre Arditi

Pierre Arditi began acting through his sister Catherine, enrolled in Tania Balachova's drama course, who encouraged him to embrace this career for which, at the start, he did not feel particularly destined.

Its beginnings are modest. In 1965, he joined the company of actor, director and writer Marcel Maréchal, and played for the first time in the theater in Audiberti's L'opéra du monde . He climbed the ranks over the years, moving from figuration to second and then leading roles. He thus plays in Diderot à corps perdue , directed by Jean-Louis Barrault, Three beds for eight by Pierre Mondy, or even Tailleur pour dames.under the direction of Bernard Murat. He also appears on television, where he is notably directed by Michel Mitrani and Serge Moati. In 1971, the filmmaker Roberto Rossellini entrusted him with the role of Blaise Pascal in the TV movie of the same name.

A theater actor above all, Pierre Arditi made his real debut in front of the camera in 1977 with L'Amour violé, where he met another young beginner, Daniel Auteuil. His first real encounter with cinema occurs three years later, when he meets Alain Resnais, who directs it for his Uncle d'Amérique. Between the two men, it is the beginning of a very long and prolific collaboration: La Vie est un roman (1983), L'Amour à mort (1984), Mélo (1986), which sees him rewarded with the César du Best supporting role, but also Smoking / No Smoking (1992), the famous and highly acclaimed diptych which won five Césars (including Best Actor for Arditi), then We know the song (1997), Pas sur la bouche (2003), Hearts (2006) and finally You haven't seen anything yet (2012).

At the same time, Arditi now combines his two passions, theater and cinema, giving a balance to his career: he alternates between films and plays, notably playing in 1987 in the successful play L'Éloignement , at the Théâtre de la Gaîté. -Montparnasse, directed by Bernard Murat: "It's not a tight-lipped job, you have to spend lavishly. Doing two things at the same time, I need it to be creative" . The actor is also expanding his range: he is a senior official in the spy film Agent Trouble directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky, a revenge-loving inspector in Yves Boisset's Raven Radio, or even a sickly jealous surgeon in the comedy Vanille strawberry, directed by Gérard Oury.

Always alternating between theater and cinema, Pierre Arditi gains in eclecticism over the years: he tries his hand at historical drama in Le Hussard sur le toit (1995), joins the Lelouch "family" for the first time in Hommes, femmes: mode employment, an experience he repeated with Chances or coincidences the following year and Le Courage d'aimer in 2005, then played his own role in Les Acteurs, a biographical comedy by Bertrand Blier.

Off the stage and the big screen, Arditi doesn't forget to make regular forays through the small skylight, to which it owes in part its popularity. He appears there very frequently from 1994. Dad-model married to Brigitte Fossey in Un et un font six , he also turns, between 1994 and 1996, TheThe Child of Soweto and The Child of Israel . He reunited with Yves Boisset for L'Affaire Dreyfus in 1994, and worked with Caroline Huppert ( J'ai deux amours , 1995), Jean-Michel Ribes ( Faisons un rêve , 1995, remake of Sacha Guitry's film), Elisabeth Rappeneau ( L love in disorder , 1997). He also participated in the adventure of the imposing saga of 1998, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, by Josée Dayan, audience record in the field of television fiction.

During the 2000s, he made a foray into the world of detective novels, on the one hand by lending his features to Inspector Larsan in the films by Bruno Podalydès adapted from Gaston Leroux's novel, The Mystery of the Yellow Room ( 2002) and its sequel Le Parfum de la dame en noir (2004), and on the other hand through the adaptation of a detective novel by Agatha Christie, Le Grand alibi, directed by Pascal Bonitzer. But the decade also marks the comedian's participation in numerous comedies, under the direction of prestigious directors such as Claude Berri (The Rest, the Other Part, 2004), Pascal Thomas (Le Grand appartement, 2006), Alexandre Arcady (Can you keep a secret?, 2007), or Danièle Thompson (Le Code A Changé, 2009).

For several years, on television, Pierre Arditi has also distinguished himself on a recurring basis in an exercise that allows him to combine theater and popular entertainment: he participates in television broadcasts of plays that he plays live on the stage. of the most prestigious venues: thus, on November 3, 2007, he performed live Sacha Guitry's play, Faisons un rêve , on the stage of the Edouard-VII theater, alongside Michèle Laroque and François Berléand in a production by Bernard Murat, and continues its momentum with various performances such as L'Eloignement, Les Fausses confidences, marivaudesque vaudeville, or La Vérité, adapted from the contemporary work of Florian Zeller.

In 2009, as a great admirer of Arditi, Didier Bourdon offered him a role in his comedy Bambou, which the actor followed the following year with Streamfield les carnets noirs, a film by Jean-Luc Miesch inspired by the Clearstream affair. . A deceptive husband in Ensemble c'est trop (2010), father of a magician in Adieu Berthe or granny's funeral (2012), there is a father in the person of Jean-Pierre Marielle, twelve years his senior, in The Flower of the Age (2013), comedy removed where the two actors have a blast.