For Florian Zeller, “an immense pleasure and a wonder”

The playwright and director responds exclusively to the two awards his film received last night at the Oscars on BFMTV.

He is a happy man who came to share his “utmost happiness”, his “gratitude” and his “surprise” after his victory at the 93rd Academy Awards on Sunday evening. Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay for his debut husband, Florian Zeller reacts exclusively to BFMTV – and immediately has an idea for the role of Anthony Hopkins, an actor drowning in dementia as an old man for the Oscar for Best Actor.

“It’s a reaction to immense joy and surprise. This joy is even bigger and all the stronger because we started the evening with an Oscar for Best Screenplay and we ended it with an Oscar for Best Actor. For me, its a Particular meaning was to share it with Anthony Hopkins, as he is at the core of the project. I don’t want to separate this film from the desire to do it with him. To be able to share this joy with him is a A great gift. “

Held in Scotland, Anthony Hopkins was absent from the ceremony. At the age of 83, he became the oldest actor to receive the award for his brilliant performance as a serial killer almost three decades after the Oscar for Best Actor. the silence of the Lambs. Florian Zeller was able to speak to him after the ceremony: “He has just risen. I felt his immense emotion. Even telling you, I am overcome by this feeling. It is very special.”

“We are in the middle of a maze”

For this film, a camera that occasionally flirts with the thriller, Florian Zeller was inspired by his grandmother, whom he was very close to, and who started suffering from dementia at the age of 15. We follow Anthony, an old man whose daughter and his family are unrecognizable, while his apartment itself is transformed.

“I tried to put the audience in a unique position, that of the character”, explains Florian Zeller on our antenna. “I didn’t want it to be just a story, but an experience. As a viewer the experience of what it might mean to lose all your bearings. You’re in the middle of a maze.”

“It was okay to play the role of a senior, because I’m old,” Anthony Hopkins told the newspaper. many times. But the role, which also won him BAFTA for Best Actor, marked him. “It made me more aware of mortality and fragility of life, and since then I underestimate people. We are all fragile, we are all damaged.”

The film reminded him of his father’s last days. “I knew how he felt in the end. Fear. Inexplicable sadness, sadness and loneliness. We all pretend not to be alone, but we are alone. Success is good. There is a way to survive, but in the end We are all strict, strict alone, “he told times. husband Should be released when theaters reopen in France.

There is already a new movie in progress

The highest-performing French writer in the world did not have to wait to get a precious gold statue to complete his next film, again taken from one of his plays, son, Which belongs to the same trilogy husband. Filming of son Ready to debut with Dream Stars in New York this summer: Hugh Jackman and Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern, the director has revealed.

“son There is a story that means a lot to me. I have been working on this for several months and I am very happy that I have been able to bring together the actors I admire and whom I love to be able to tell it, ”says Florian Zeller .

son Tells “The story of a mother and father who no longer live together. They have a 17-year-old boy who is going through a difficult time, who has academic difficulties, depression, and these parents are trying to save their son.” The mysterious period of adolescence, “the author explains.

With his success at the Oscars, Hollywood studios should scramble to entrust him with future projects. And Florian Zeller does not spend a day “out of work on works that do not belong to me”: “I started writing novels and then I discovered theater and it became a huge passion that ‘fifteen years (. ..) took over and then all of a sudden, I made this film! What I mean is that I never learned to close the doors, leaving them ajar for this, we might be surprised by life, “he says.

But immediately his mind is elsewhere. “Actually I’m very focused today son That these proposals are not really relevant to me, “he assured.” Once i did son, We’ll see but for now what really matters to me is to go to the end of the story that I’m going to take, “he concluded.