“Vulnerable and a bit borderline…”: Virginie Ledoyen on her character on Contre toi France 2

Virginie Ledoyen plays one of the main roles in the France 2 mini-series Against You, starting on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 at 9:10 p.m. Here, the actress plays Esther, a married woman facing death with a troubled past who falls under the spell of her bodyguard (Lanick Gothrie)…

AlloCiné collected the actor’s secrets about this new television experience.

AlloCiné: Why did you choose to participate in the mini-series “Contre toi”?

Virgin Ledoyen: For its script, its plot, its writing, the director Christophe Lamott… I think it’s a thriller that works very well. Esther, my character, is complex, charming and mysterious at the same time. We don’t know who he is, we don’t know if he’s crazy or not, we don’t know what he’s hiding… No one in life is the same color. I like that we don’t know which way to dance with it.

How was your collaboration with Lanick Guthrie, who plays Mathias, Esther’s bodyguard?

It was the first time we worked together! In the story, our characters have a very strong, very intense and even terrible relationship. It created a lot of fluidity between us, and Christoph contributed a lot to that. We talked at length beforehand about what this couple wanted. Was it just an adulterous couple? We also really talked about the sometimes intimate scenes we had to play. This gave us a lot of confidence.

Why does Esther fall under the spell of Matthias?

In my opinion, it’s called love at first sight, actually! These are people who realize, it’s not planned at all, it’s not an adventure, it’s not made for them. Each of them is married, but they are two people who know each other at some point. He’s also the only one who believes him, right away. Their relationship is not like a novel, they have nothing to gain from it, on the contrary.

Your character almost drowns when “vs. you” starts. Wasn’t it too difficult to dive into the lake in winter?

It was very, very cold, I can confirm that (laughs) there were no 36 takes, thankfully! That’s the peril of filming… there are worse things on earth, obviously, but it sure was curdled!

At the beginning of the series, you play several scenes with a dog. Are you comfortable with animals?

I already had the experience of filming with animals. They are trained, so generally everything goes very well. And then there was Messi: The Dog in Autumn Anatomy!

In the end, what was your biggest challenge on this shoot?

We tried all the way with Christophe, Lanick and Charlie Dupont to keep this character vulnerable and also have a bit of an edge to her. All this while trying to make him lovable and human because he can be tough, he can be cold… and what’s more, he sometimes lies!

You have been appearing in serials for a long time. Is this a format you particularly like?

Mini-series are great because you have time to create and explore stories and characters. In this case, it was good for Esther to set up four episodes and make sense of it.

Do you have other TV projects planned?

I finished a television adaptation of Fred Vargas’ novel On the Slab with Jose Dayan and Ivan Atal.