“It’s a subject that worries me a lot because I failed at school”… Calogero tells us about his first steps as an actor in the movie “Respira”

In Respire, a new fiction broadcast on M6 this Tuesday 12 September at 9.10pm, Calogero plays Raphael Delage, a music teacher who helps and supports Tessa (Charlie Louiselier), a bullied young teenager at school who finds . His taste for singing life.

It was under the leadership of Jérôme Cornu, who represented Les Brigades du Tigre and Fugueuse, that the singer weightless He will make his acting debut. AlloCiné caught up with him last June to discuss this new adventure with him.

AlloCiné: Respire is your first experience as an actor. What convinced you to accept the role of Raphael?

Calogero : This is a subject that affects me a lot because I failed at school. I was in the last grade and the teachers always told my parents that I would never do anything in life. Playing the professor is a bit of a twist. That’s life, that’s how it is.

Acting was not at all what I planned in my life. It came to me and I thought a lot. In the end, what convinced me to accept the role was the fact that Jérôme Cornu was the director of Respire.

It gave me confidence. He did The Tiger Brigades, which is a film I really like, and he also worked on Dissonances. He has a real vision and expresses a lot with the camera. The theme mixed with the director’s choice convinced me to give the experience a try.

How did you prepare for this role?

Jérôme Cornoux immediately put me in the hands of Carine Nouris (Actor and Actor Coach, Editor’s Note), which made me work a lot. I immediately hit it off with the talented young actors playing alongside me. I was in a world I wasn’t familiar with, so I had to break down a lot of little barriers to be comfortable. I often went to see these young actors to work with them and promote them.

Was the fact that Respire revolves a lot around music a crucial element in playing it?

What interested me was that this teacher had a non-academic teaching method. This is a bit of my vision of music. I think there’s a lot of learning in music, but also a lot of ignorance. Ignorance really allows you to have a much more creative mind.

If we start out learning Beethoven, Bach or Mozart, we may be blocked for life, to the point where we can no longer create because we are faced with insurmountable mountains. . This is my vision of music.

I also liked the character very much. I like that he doesn’t notice Tessa because she sings well. He notices her because she is fragile. It helps him get through it, hang on to school and other things, not just music. What she sees in him is that he leaves. He once had a student who had a problem and he didn’t see the signs. He doesn’t want it to happen again.

That’s what I liked about the character. Telling Tessa’s story is so important because there are so many people like her. Take the example of mathematics. Just because you’re not good at math doesn’t mean you can’t do something with your life. As a child, mathematics was a relaxing subject for me. I stayed.

We insist on learning equations and calculations that we will never do again in our lives, except in certain professions. I think there are subjects like sports, music, history or art history that we should focus more on. For me, art, painting and cooking can also help a child who may be violent.

Does this first experience as an actor make you want to do it again?

If I meet directors like Jerome, yes. But otherwise, I’m not specifically going to repeat the comedy. This is not a priority. I loved acting, but I’m not going to knock on doors looking for a new role. I let the universe do its thing like I did with Respire. The movie came to me. If a project comes to me and I find it interesting, it is made with passionate and interesting people, why not!

Watch Respira, a TV film loosely adapted from the story of singer Tessae, this Tuesday 12 September from 9.10pm on M6.