‘We were stuck on a cliff’: Sarah Mortensen recounts the high-risk filming of L’Abime

On Wednesday 15 February 2023, France 2 continues to broadcast the new mini-series L’Abime from 9.10pm. Last week, no less than 4.35 million curious people got to know Elsa and Laurent Lacazette, who look like a model couple…

“The Gap”, an intriguing TV series

Starring Sarah Mortensen (who spoke about the experience) and Gil Alma, this very loving couple, married for thirty years, are devoted parents to Lucy, a bushy teenager. However, one morning Elsa does not return from her usual run and disappears without a trace.

At first, Laurent and his daughter’s world is tinged with suffering… then it comes crashing down when the police tell them that Elsa is not the person she claims to be. Laurent must face the facts: the woman he is in love with is mysterious. A mystery whose past resurfaces today…

Shot in a grand natural environment, L’Abîme presents places with a special charm on the screen. As Sarah Mortensen explained:We shot in the Verdon valleys in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, then at the Cassan estate, at the magnificent castle where the wine is produced. It is outside Aix-en-Provence. We were also in Marseille for a while. And we were at Etang de Berre and Lac de Sainte-Croix.”

Dangerous scenes to shoot

But that’s not all, because in fiction, several high-tension scenes are set in the snow. According to Sarah Mortensen, shooting at this real location was not without its dangers. The actor told us:We started shooting there, these are shootings where you can’t stand on your feet. Gil and I are pretty tall, so we swerved… and when we came out the other end of this place, we found ourselves stuck on a rock!“

He continues: “You have to open it to get out a little and then you go back inside. You cannot walk to stretch your legs in this exit. These are long galleries with holes… When I ran into the tunnel, I had two chances to step into the hole (laughs) it was a high risk! It’s not designed at all for what we did, but it’s a very nice place.”

Sarah Mortensen then points out that filming these sequences was also difficult for certain members of the technical team performing L’Abime:People are really giddy. They couldn’t get on the set because of their height. For my part, being there with the whole team was reassuring. Everything was fine. I wouldn’t go alone because I wouldn’t have anything else to do there, but in the context of filming, where there are fifty of us, it’s not a problem. (laughs)“