In 2006, Patrick Chirac landed at the Flots Bleus campsite. On his tanned skin, he wore a black swimsuit and a soft pink tank top with the inscription “Dog Hot Dog”. The Dijon playboy with blue eyes looking for love, as portrayed by Franck Dubosc, then burst onto the big screen during the summer: in less than two months, 5,070,242 tickets were sold in France.
In 2008, Didier Travolta, “shirt open over chest hair, small buttocks squeezed into white bell-bottom pants,” dazzled the dance floors.
Franck Dubosc plays the role of “Didier Graindorge by day and Didier Travolta by Saturday night”. With a shopping cart in hand, this adult dresses like a teenager and thinks like a child. A fan of disco, this kind and naive character attempts to revive his dance trio that was popular in the 80s in the Le Havre region: the BEE KINGS.
Disco? Outdated, get that out of your head but definitely don’t tell that to Didier Travolta because disco is not just music, “it’s a religion!”
But how will this unemployed man, who doesn’t even know what a CV is, find himself on the dance floor with his buddies? “He’s going back to disco to enter a disco contest that the legendary Gin Fizz club is launching. Winning this contest will finally allow him to give his kid Brian a real vacation,” Franck Dubosc replies.
But it’s far from a done deal! Didier hasn’t danced for twenty years. Lessons are thus essential, and there he falls “head over heels” for his dance teacher played by Emmanuelle Bรฉart, who is quite classic compared to him. But Didier had “a flash” when he saw her and he wants her to become “his catapult.”
Dancing? Yes, and believe me, Franck Dubosc dances disco very well along with his two comrades, Samuel Le Bihan and Abbรจs Zahmani. Training, physical preparation? “Every morning, all three of us trained for three hours, and in the afternoon for three more hours I trained with Emmanuelle, all for three months. Oh, we weren’t aiming to become star dancers, it was more to get the rust off and be in sync. We got to know our characters through the dance. Gradually, we adopted a certain attitude. We had our water bottles in hand and were in jogging suits. We became very much dancers in both form and essence. We weren’t doubled,” explains Franck Dubosc. And what about the splits, Franck, were they real? “No tricks. In fact, it’s an American split as the dance professionals say. My testicles juggle on the rainbow of the disco ball lighting up the floor. The hardest part was doing the carousel, which we stole from ‘Saturday Night Fever.’”
By the way, in your tight costumes on a dance floor in front of a crowd, is it nerve-wracking? “My God, we were embarrassed to find ourselves like that. Indeed, Samuel Le Bihan told me just before we shot the final scene. We felt so ridiculous in those tight outfits trying to hold our stomachs in. We thought that to dance well, at some point, you had to let it go. And then, Gerard came and told us: ‘Guys, turn this embarrassment into talent.’ We were petrified,” responds Franck Dubosc.
In fact, did you meet Dubosc-Depardieu? “I met Gerard on the set of Asterix,” says Franck Dubosc, “I offered him the role and sometime later he calls me and says: ‘Didier! It’s Jean-Franรงois Jackson on the phone.’ I think we’re going to do more together because he’s not done pinching my butt. Because Gerard touches everyone’s butt when he films. It’s very complicated.”
So, is disco back on the dance floors? In any case, it’s back on the screens of all French cinemas!
We’ll leave the last word to Franck Dubosc: “In my career, where I’ve acted the most was while dancing.”
A movie where the music will transport you to the dance floor! Original music by Michel Legrand.
