“Unfortunately, I have nothing positive to say about the man”: Niels Arestrup, a great actor who also had his dark side

The film and theater world is in mourning following the announcement of the death of Nils Arestrup at the age of 75 this Sunday, December 1st. Although he began his career on the big screen in 1973, he had to wait until the 2000s to receive his first César nominations. He won three statues for his supporting role: in 2006, 2010 and 2014 for The Beat My Heart Has Stopped, A Prophet and Quai d’Orsay respectively. A great theater actor, he has acted in about forty productions and won the Moliere in 2020.

If the tributes are unanimous in congratulating the memory of the great actor he undoubtedly was, not all of his peers, far and wide, will have fond memories of the man. Several times Niels Arestrup was accused of violence by his partners.

“Unfortunately, I have nothing positive to say about the man”

In 1979, on the set of La Dérobade, he ruptured Miou Miou’s eardrum. “He had a completely swollen earlobe too, I told him so, although it was pretending.” Daniel Duvall Who was making a movie that was supposed to be a simulation, but insisted, wanted it to look real… The same day I broke my coccyx Maria Schneider…” He recalled in a portrait interview he gave to a daily newspaper releasein 2007.

“Unfortunately, I have nothing positive to say about the man, my memory of the theater partner remains a significant trauma.” Isabelle Adjani commented on Arestrup’s death announcement. When the actor expressed his condolences to the actor’s family, he did not forget the slap he gave in 1983… he left the room that year. Miss Julie by August Strindberg at the Edward VII Theater, in which she starred opposite Nils Arestrup, who struck her down.

The person of interest denies this and explains at a glance that he was the one who hit him first. But he will not be consistent in his statements. In 1999, he admitted to Télérama that he had slapped an actress, before going back two years later on the set of the talk show. You can’t please everyone Hosted by Marc-Olivier Fogel. who has pointed out the contradiction in his various statements on this subject. Did he or didn’t he give Isabelle Ajan a brutal slap? “I don’t know, maybe I was drunk.”

“I hate him and he knows why”

This is another story of stupidity that tarnished his reputation in 1996. Actress Miriam Boyer, Clovis Kornilak’s mother, has been fired. “serious misconduct”While he played with Arestrup in the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?for which the actor’s company was responsible for the majority of the production.

While the play features a couple breaking up during a violent domestic scene, Miriam Boyer accused Arestrup of nearly strangling her. bring the case to court, This is how he recalled the sequence he experienced :

“During the choking scene, I had to defend myself because he was holding my neck so hard. Then, during the tender scene where I reached out to him, he put his arms around my neck. So much so that I struggled. When I complained, Nils Arestrup said I hit him because he’s a co-producer of the show , he started destabilizing me long before he wanted to break me up because He can’t stand the actor that exists in front of him.” Miriam Boyer won her case in court and received 800,000 francs in damages.

In this context, we can better understand the words Clovis CornillacBefore he came to promote Belle et Sébastien 3 on the microphone of Europe 1, the show hello france Hosted by Daphné Bürki. Commenting on Arestrup’s 2018 César nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Goodbye Up, Kornilak said:

“I hate this man. He’s one of the rare ones…but he knows why, no problem”. Continue a little further: “There are people who behave badly and there are people who behave badly, generally they are the people I don’t like…”