Paul Kircher, actor “Le Lycienne”: “Sexuality is the only thing that really belongs to the character”

In High school studentPaul Kircher plays Lucas, a 17-year-old who has just lost his father, much like Christophe Honoré at the same age. With a slightly lost black gaze, refined diction, and the attitude of someone leaning against a wall to watch life unfold, the 20-year-old (soon to be 21) young actor contributes to the film’s beautiful quirkiness.

How did you become an actor?

As a child, I often went on tour with my parents [les comédiens Irène Jacob et Jérôme Kircher]. Since this job scared me a little, I wanted to do something for myself. While in high school, I studied at a contemporary music school in Paris and sang in various rock bands that didn’t always have a name, except for one: French Breakfast. After graduation, I started studying economics and geography. What I like about Geo is seeing how people physically live on Earth. At the same time, I took theater courses with Jordan Beswick [professeur à l’école de Lee Strasberg, à New York]At the Manufacture des Abbesses.

What led you to listen to Christophe Honoré?

After shooting the first feature film, did you catchI met the casting director A student of higher education. He would usually ask me questions and then ask me to listen to a song while thinking about someone, take a picture of myself with family and friends or walk down the street… naturalistic things. They certainly gave Christophe Honoré, who saw more than a hundred candidates, an idea of ​​what the young man was like today.

What does being 17 mean to someone three years older than you?

It is the river phoenix at the end of the raceby Sidney Lumet. With her parents wanted by the FBI, she must make an important decision: does she want to learn piano or run away with her family? This choice is very revealing of adolescence… when one is torn between family, school and oneself.

How did Christophe Honoré introduce you to the film?

He did not insist on the autobiographical side of the story, but he gave me a book that belonged to him, Tenderness on the skinby Edmund White, in which a boy recounts how he experienced his homosexuality in the United States in the 1960s. Then he advised me to see it. our loveby Maurice Pialati, Manchester by the SeaBy Kenneth Lonergan and The Eternal Sun of the Immaculate Mind, By Michel Gondry.