A difficult year: Which actor did Jonathan Cohen replace in Toledano and Nakache’s new film?

What is it about? Albert and Bruno are overworked and end up meeting young environmental activists on the associational road. More attracted by the free beer and chips than their arguments, they gradually join the movement without convincing…

Musical chairs

After filming him in the TV series En Thérapie, Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache wanted to work with Pio Marmai on a feature film. The directors envisioned Alban Ivanov opposite him, but the actor had to withdraw from the project due to health reasons. Then they turned to Jonathan Cohen instead. He was flattered but almost turned down the project, exhausted by the shoot he had just finished and the Flambeau post-production.

“We said it couldn’t be more appropriate for the character, nicknamed Lexo: he just had to come as he is, scalded and completely broken!, explains Eric Toledano. In the end, the difficult year roles were swapped between the two actors, with Pio Marmai playing the role originally intended for Jonathan Cohen, and him playing Pio.

A film born from a world on pause

While writing the film while incarcerated, Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache paused to think about this world during a pause, as the former reports: “What was this new world that was to come? This world that some thought would no longer be ours. These people who clapped their hands at the windows every evening at 8 o’clock… and other images appeared as if to contradict this emptiness, which we all experience at that time, an echo of the permanent growth of our societies.

Italian comedy as a model

A difficult year – which received the label Le Club AlloCiné Aime – is a turning point for Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, who decided to fully embrace the influence of Italian comedy. “Using irony, satire, farce, all these elements that serve to better understand our subject, to make the river more turbulent, with more currents and countercurrents, to disrupt, disturb, magnify society in change and deconstruction.

Real activists in the casting

For the demonstration scenes, the directors called on real environmental activists. “They said to us, ‘We’re making people talk about us, and you’re talking about us, so we’re ready. We love mixed casting, actors versus non-actors, everyone has that challenge. It was funny, because often these young activists even satirized us mildly! “Olivier Nakache recalls.

For Pio Marmai, filming with real activists was enriching: “The scenes of the intervention were repeated and they told us their methods: I was interested in discovering and recreating with them their “performances”, these human chains, these sessions, which are so many “artistic blocks”. Their poetic and political. The dimension bothered me. I exchanged a lot with them and they were very comfortable and generous in telling us their tactics, group rules during actions or conversations, so many things that I didn’t fully know.”

Filming permissions

The team faced difficulties in obtaining permission to film. “Almost everywhere we were turned down. None of the malls agreed to recreate Black Friday, and the airports balked until we were able to negotiate with Royce and Chateauroux.”– says Eric Toledano. As for the Banque de France, it is actually a similar building, the Climate Academy building, installed in the old city hall of the 4th arrondissement of Paris.

(Re)watch our interview with the directors of A Difficult Year, in theaters now: