Most Valuable Commodity: Why was Gerard Depardieu replaced in the voice casting?

Hitting our theaters this Wednesday, November 20th, The Most Precious of Goods is the first animated feature from director Michel Hazanavicius, who adapts Jean-Claude Grumberg’s novel of the same name, which was published in January 2019 while the filmmaker was already in the works. Working on getting it into cinema. Which was not easy and he faced several obstacles.

To begin with, Covid blocked funding and so the filmmaker made Cut! Meanwhile, as he told us at the Cannes Film Festival, a few hours before the presentation of the most valuable goods in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival.

A feature film that returns to the Shoah, with the story of this child thrown from one of the death trains, collected by several foresters, and in which the voices of Dominique Blanc, Denis Podalides or the late Jean-Louis Tritignan resonate. , who here marks his final film appearance as the narrator, whose text he wrote before his death in June 2022.

Casting was completed by Grigory Gadebois, the translator for the Foresters. The character that was originally supposed to be played by Gerard Depardieu. But, he was charged from December 2020 “Rape and Sexual Assault” After being sued by actress Charlotte Arnold and accused of sexual assault by 15 other women, the actor left the project in October 2023. by mutual agreement with the director, and his agent confirmed that he “No longer accepts any project in its current context.”

“The movie forced us to distance ourselves from him and he realized it”

“At a given moment, the film is responsible”– said Michel Hazanavicius when discussing this change with us last May. “Whatever feelings, sometimes conflicting, we may have about Gérard Depardieu — who remains a tremendous actor, we say — the film forced us to separate ourselves from him, and he realized that. And we did.”

“Then, I’m not here to defend him or to condemn him. And so, according to the calendar, Gregory Gadbois stars in two feature films released on November 20, in which only his voice is heard: this and Le Choix, where Vincent Lyndon is alone on the screen and interacts only with him. his partners by phone.

Comments collected by Maximilien Pierret in Cannes on May 24, 2024