Already known to stand-up fans and listeners of France Inter, the comedian, but also screenwriter and actress, Agnès Hurstel will soon land on the big screen with the films Z like Z by Michel Hazanavicius, A happy man with Fabrice Lucchini, and another with Dany Boon. Ah, no, this last became the series Young and Golri, which she co-created with Victor Saint-Macary and Léa Domenach and of which she holds the top bill, from Thursday on OCS Max and in full on demand.
The old man and his cat
“I had a treatment of 15 pages for a popular comedy, and therefore necessarily with Dany Boon, tells and half jokes Agnès Hurstel. But five minutes after introducing it to producers Michael Gentile and Lauraine Heftler of The Film TV, everyone figured out that it would be a series with 26 minute episodes. And a story inspired by her life, when at age 24, she met an older man and became the mother-in-law… of a cat. “This cat is kind of the muse of the project,” she comments. My only one on stage was already talking about how, when you’re young, you don’t want to become a parent, to enter this world of adults, of responsibilities. However, I saw friends around me becoming a mother-in-law before even thinking of being a mother. “
“A” buddy movie “between the great moron and the little intelligent”
Agnès Hurstel therefore has her subject, but also a universe with stand-ups, “a jungle I wanted to talk about”, and even dreams of romantic comedy à la Love at first sight in Notting Hill and Four weddings and a funeral. “I wanted this to be the starting point, but not the heart of the series.” It takes not three episodes but three seconds and a stupid challenge for his fictional double, Prune, to fall in love with “old” Francis, perfect Jonathan Lambert.
“The series has the finery of a rom with, evokes the stand-up, but in truth, it is above all a buddy movie between the heroine and the little one, ”reveals the co-creator. Because Francis hid that he had a six-year-old daughter, Alma, as Prune will hide from him that she has decided to make her the subject of his show. “It’s a dynamic à la Laurel and Hardy, Dumb and Dumber, between the big moron and the smart little one, who from his worst enemy will become his best friend, his first audience. “
Funny scenes like in real life
Suffice to say that the casting of Alma was essential to the success of Young and Golri. “It was during the first confinement so it was not easy,” recalls Agnès Hurstel. We received lots of test tapes, but Jehanne Pasquet quickly made the difference. She was too strong, she had even turned more than many of us. With the director Fanny Sidney, we spent whole afternoons creating a relationship of trust, a common vocabulary, a space for improvisation. Because you only have four hours a day to shoot with the kids, and we only had 20 days to put the whole series in the box. “
The spirit of a “buddy movie” is not just about the main “couple”, and rubs off on other relationships and characters. The scenes between Prune and her best friend Adé (Marie Papillon) thus often last longer than they need, and lead them towards something else, often a good fit of laughter. “But this is not improvisation, reacts the comedian. Everything is written. I wanted there to be scenes of life in the series, that the starting point not be that of the end of the scene, that it be very oral, very natural, and not programmatic like in many sitcoms. »Along the same lines, if Young and Golri returns for a season 2 (fingers crossed), Agnès Hurstel promises “something else, which happens a long time later”.
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