Actor Niels Arestrup dies

It was his wife, the author Isabelle Le Nouvel, who announced the death of Niels Arestrup on Sunday morning, in Ville-d’Avray (92). The prodigious interpreter ofA Prophet by Jacques Audiard was 75 years old. “I am extremely sad to announce the death of my husband, the immense actor Niels Arestrup, after a courageous fight against illness. He passed away surrounded by the love of his family. »

“An irrecoverable loss like Bernard Blier”, laments Francis Huster. “I am very sad for his wife and children,” confides François Berléand who played his half-brother in an autobiographical play, 88 times infinityby Isabelle Nouvel. “Immense and brilliant actor”, greets him Patrick Chesnais, his partner in Dinnerthe play by Jean-Claude Brisville. André Dussolier with whom he appeared in Diplomacy is “too upset and dejected” to speak out.

The Franco-Danish actor, born in Montreuil on February 8, 1949, had often distinguished himself in villain roles during more than fifty-five years of career. Like Alain Delon, he was a sacred monster who was imposing. However, he was naturally reserved and against all expectations, he had retained a form of shyness. His piercing blue gaze kept his interlocutor at a distance. “He was not a poseur, he imposed it,” underlines Francis Huster. “He was a shy guy inhabited by the anxiety of not doing well, confirms Patrick Chesnais. Sharing the stage with him was a joy and a privilege”

“One of the most fantastic jobs”

The only son of a taciturn worker from Bagnolet, Niels Arestrup answered journalists’ questions after careful consideration. He had never felt the desire to be in the spotlight and for a long time granted interviews sparsely. He remembered the strength of character of his father, workshop manager in a Testut balance assembly factory. And the courage of his Breton mother who worked on the assembly line at a radio manufacturer. His parents would have liked him to follow in their footsteps. They worry about its future, but there was what Niels Arestrup called a “accident of life” welcome.

 

You are an actor like Michel Simon, Pierre Brasseur, Pierre Fresnay, you have nothing to do with it, that’s the way it is. If, one day, a little luck intervenes, you will play great texts

Tania Balachova, drama teacher

The man became an actor by chance. He was 19 when he was “encounter” by this profession. He discovers Tania Balachova on a television show and decides to go see her. “When you are on stage and you listen to your partner, you are the first spectator, she told us, remembers François Berléand. The legendary drama teacher gives Niels Arestrup a test, examines it, then observes in a learned tone: “I have nothing in particular to tell you. You are an actor like Michel Simon, Pierre Brasseur, Pierre Fresnay, you have nothing to do with it, that’s the way it is. If, one day, a little luck intervenes, you will play great texts. When he was reminded of this, the person concerned was almost embarrassed by the comparison.

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“Tania Balachova put her finger in the paint, I never came out, thank God! It’s one of the most fantastic jobs there is, he commented for Le Figaro in 2020. We spend our lives playing, meeting people, being elsewhere, never falling into routine.” According to Francis Huster, he was “elsewhere”, not on stage. It felt like he was playing for himself.”

Beginnings at 23

Among his other “masters”, Peter Brook and Michel Bouquet were essential. They nourished him, said Niels Arestrup, who for a time directed the Théâtre de la Renaissance and taught in a school he founded in Montmartre. Michel Bouquet gave him advice: “Read, read, learn, learn, forget, forget…”

“As in life, a character is the same. When you do your work well, it is with you all the time. You can’t let go of it”, explained Niels Arestrup, who made his theater debut at the age of 23, in Jean Gilibert’s troupe in 1972. He plays in Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, directed by Alain Barsacq who suggested he change his name. To avoid hurting his parents, the young man refuses.

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Another director who counts in Arestrup’s training is Andréas Voutsinas, a Greek director who worked at the Actor Studio before settling in Paris at the end of the 1960s. “To be an actor is to be something else, differently, somewhere else, to be someone else,” estimated his former student on France Inter in 2012.

“Like a rocker”

Niels Arestrup, who became the happy father of twins at the age of 63, has often been “someone else”. In 1979, he played a violent pimp with “his” prostitutes, Miou-Miou and Maria Schneider, in The Evasion by Daniel Duval. “Slap him!” the director repeats to the actor. «Oui», Miou-Miou “encourages” him and ends up physically hurting him, as did Maria Schneider. Niels Arestrup also had a reputation for mistreating actresses on stage.

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In 1983, his altercation with Isabelle Adjani in Mademoiselle Julie by August Strindberg at the Édouard VII Theater, had caused a lot of ink to flow. Jean-Paul Roussillon had abandoned the set, then the interpreter of The Murderous Summer in turn. They never replied to each other again. Which did not prevent Fanny Ardant from playing Music by Marguerite Duras directed by Bernard Murat with Arestrup at the Théâtre de la Gaîté Montparnasse in 1995.

 

He remained the young mad dog, that was his strength. He played vile characters, crazy people, but something made people reach out to him all the same

Catherine Arditi, actress

But a year later, the actor once again maintained a conflictual relationship with Myriam Boyer while they played Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a play by Edward Albee about a couple who fall apart at Gaîté Montparnasse. Catherine Arditi had replaced the mother of Clovis Cornillac who had slammed the door. “I thought of him as a rocker who was going to fuck things up every time, explains Francis Huster, he had suppressed rage within him. He didn’t want to grow old, he remained the crazy young dog, that’s what made him strong. He played vile characters, crazy people, but something made us reach out to him all the same.”

“The Rodin of the theater”

“It’s in the past, it’s far away, I’ve been given a label,” Niels Arestrup told us, sweeping away bad memories with one gesture. In 1996, he filmed in parallel under the direction of Italian director Marco Ferreri, The future is womanaround a couple who adopt a child. “He said “Motor” while eating tangerines… There was a Ferreri style, a search, judged Niels Arestrup under the spell.

Claude Lelouch was the first to give him a chance in the cinema. In 1976 in And if it had to be done again. Arestrup plays alongside Anouk Aimé, Catherine Deneuve, Charles Denner and Francis Huster. “For me, Niels is the Rodin of the theater, the latter ignites. He sculpted his roles, he was rewarded for supporting roles, but there was no supporting role for him. He had a fascination for his characters that we never imagined. He loved receiving so much that he gave more than was necessary. He was like Spencer Tracy, he had a fragility. And a seduction which was – contrary to what we think – absolutely not macho. He had anger in his soul. When he went up The Misanthrope, at the Renaissance theater, with Marianne Basler, he was aware of it.”

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Retirement had no meaning for him. He told us that he would have been unhappy not to work anymore. His career peaked with the “very demanding” Jacques Audiard who spotted him at the theater. The director first hired him in 2006 to My heart stopped beating in which Arestrup plays the unscrupulous father of Romain Duris. He won the César for best supporting actor. Then for A Prophet which marks a turning point. Arestrup masterfully plays a frightening godfather of the Corsican underworld.

The actor agrees to work with a coach to put himself in the shoes of the mafioso. The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009 and nine César Awards in 2010, including Best Supporting Actor for Niels Arestrup. The latter explained that Jacques Audiard was “downright difficult, he always wants it to go further”. He recalled his warning before a take: “We will not leave this plateau until there is blood on the walls, he is capable of going ever further, until exhaustion »specified the actor to AlloCiné in 2011.

“I never learn by heart, but by body”

Bertrand Tavernier entrusts him with the role of a ministerial chief of staff with irresistible phlegm facing an impulsive and unpredictable Thierry Lhermitte in Quai d’Orsayadapted from the eponymous comic strip by Christophe Blain and Abel Lanzac. Almost a counter-job which earned the actor his third César for best supporting role. The corridors of power interest him. The Candidate (2007), the only feature film he wrote and directed, is the story of manipulation between the two rounds of a presidential election. Eminence grise or devious mentor, his political career on screen continues in the series Black Baron.

Whether political or gangster, Arestrup is involved in the same way. “I believe in what I play. I believe in it like a child, like when I played cowboys and Indians”, he says to Figaro when he plays 88 times infinitythe play by Isabelle Le Nouvel inspired by her reunion with her half-brother at age 20. He was very proud to have filmed with Steven Spielberg who had given him the role of grandfather in his fresco war horse.

 

Niels is the actor with a capital A. He never did the same things again, he always tried to bring another tone or another gesture

Cyril Gély, author

Young directors often thought of him, like Gilles Legrand, for You will be my son (2011), in which he portrays a patriarch in his vineyards. The actor meets Patrick Chesnais there. The same year, his role as General Dietrich von Choltitz in Diplomacy in the theater with André Dussolier as Raoul Nordling makes a lasting impression. “He was the first to whom I had read the play on the advice of Myriam Feune de Colombi, the director of the Théâtre Montparnasse, says author Cyril Gély. Niels is the actor with a capital A. He never did the same things again, he always tried to bring another tone or another gesture. He told me: ”I never learn by heart, but by body” ».

Volker Schlöndorff will transpose it to the cinema in 2014. Niels Arestrup is already talking to Cyril Gély about Rougethe play by John Logan, to lend his stature to the painter Mark Rothko at the Théâtre Montparnasse, directed by Jérémie Lippmann with Alexis Moncorgé (2020). “He was the only one to bring 700 people into a room! »