Pio Marmaï A Happy Event Interview

Pio Marmaï A Happy Event Interview

Cast: Louise Bourgoin, Pio Marmaï, Josiane Balasko
Director: Rémi Bezançon
Genre: Romance, Drama
Rated: MA15+
Running Time: 107 minutes

Synopsis: Barbara - intelligent, ambitious and gorgeous - is a post-graduate student, while Nicolas, replete with boyish charm, is a clerk in a video store. After a humorous courtship in the video store where Nicolas works, the pair begins a passionate romance that grows into relationship bliss. They frolic, they dine, they paint walls together and all too quickly they find themselves enthusiastically, if not slightly nervously, embarking on their biggest joint venture yet - their first child.

But what begins as a life step they decide to embrace with joyful abandon, quickly starts to change shape (both figuratively and literally) as Barbara's tummy swells with their unborn child and new pressures start to weigh on their relationship. Hormones begin to race, emotions run high and identities begin to fracture. The reality and pit-falls of child-bearing and rearing soon hits home, and despite the support of those around her, Barbara struggles to connect with her baby.

Release Date: April 12th, 2012

Interview with Pio Marmaï

Rémi Bezançon: So Pio, why did you accept this role?

Pio Marmaï: Idiot, you told me you had written it for me!

Rémi Bezançon: Yes, but you could have refused...

Pio Marmaï: Well no, I really didn't have a choice. I owe you my first role in the movies... You're fishing for compliments here, aren't you? Ok. I owe you everything, man. You pulled me out of the gutter. There, I've said it. No, seriously, when you talked to me about this project, I was intrigued by how you were going to treat the subject. We have a pretty naïve way of looking at motherhood in the movies, and more generally in our society. Everything is lovely, everything is wonderful, expecting a baby is a wonderful event, the ultimate desire of any couple. But like all fairy tales, you never really see what happens afterwards, once the baby is born. Your take on the subject is pretty unique, and that's what made me want to be a part of the project.


Rémi Bezançon: Has it made you want to have children too?

Pio Marmaï: Uh no. Well one day probably, but not right away. The idea sounds nice, but it's also a source of anxiety, because life is no longer the same after the birth of a baby. My character, Nicolas, will have to change jobs, become more stable and accept certain sacrifices. But to reassure himself and to convince himself that he's not become too old, he also at times acts like a retarded teenager. It's paradoxical, because you might think that paternity can't help but trigger the passage to adulthood, but at the same time it also causes some inevitable regression.


Becoming a Father
Rémi Bezançon: Yes, that was probably to strike a balance, to make the change easier to get through. But the character wasn't all that mature from the start...

Pio Marmaï: True, Nicolas' great ambition is to carry on a conversation using nothing but dialogue from 'Back to the Future'... by Jove!


Rémi Bezançon: What do you feel the father's real role is?

Pio Marmaï: There was a scene in the movie in which a pediatrician explained to Barbara, who is living in total osmosis with her daughter, that a couple's equilibrium is threatened when a child arrives. Their roles evolve and each needs to find his and her new place. I think he concludes that the role of the father is to act as a buffer zone between mother and child. I think I agree with that… but the scene was cut during the edit.

Rémi Bezançon: I thought it sounded too explanatory. I prefer suggesting things rather than explaining them.

Pio Marmaï: It's the same for an actor: it's no use overacting. Overacting is a lack of confidence in the audience.

Rémi Bezançon: Especially in the movies, where a raised eyebrow can take on enormous proportions. I've had this same conversation with Sinclair about music, which should never take precedence over the image. Violins over an emotional scene, even when playing magnificently, can ruin everything.

Pio Marmaï: In the end, it's all a matter of the right dose.


Preparing for the Role
Rémi Bezançon: You once told me that to prepare for this role you spent six months before the shoot working in a video club. You can now admit that was pure bullshit!

Pio Marmaï: Well... yes. But I did prepare for my role in a different way. Louise and I spent a lot of time rehearsing together, because above and beyond our own individual roles, we needed to incarnate a couple. We had to bring to life their shifting relationship, we had to show them in their everyday lives, with their complicity, their little manias, the memories they share, etc. It's pretty hard to cheat with things like that. So it was important to see each other in advance, to spend time together, have some fun, and get to know each other. And some of our friends were sometimes kind enough to lend us their babies in the afternoon. We took care of them together; we took them out for walks in the park. It was nice. Our only fear was that the paparazzi find us. They might have drawn some hasty conclusions!

Rémi Bezançon: It's true. You did seem to feel rather comfortable with babies during the shoot.

Pio Marmaï: I can look at a baby for hours on end, it empties my head, and it sends me to another planet. On the other hand, a baby is a partner who doesn't act. So if it feels like laughing, it laughs. If it feels like vomiting, it vomits, and if it wants to whimper, it'll whimper for two hours. So suddenly you've got 50 people being held up and doing everything they can to calm him.

Rémi Bezançon: Yes, what worked best was calling in the boom man.


The Difference Between a Baby and a Motorcycle
Pio Marmaï: Yes, the babies did like grabbing for the boom! In fact, we were no longer at the service of the camera, as they say, but at the service of the babies. You didn't yell for silence when we were about to shoot, you did it when the baby was arriving on the set, so everything would be calm and Zen-like. If the baby sensed agitation, it got upset. It might start shrieking at the top of its little lungs, and when that gets loud, it's worse than a sputtering motorcycle without a muffler.

Rémi Bezançon: I never thought I'd hear you compare a baby to a motorcycle… I know that you're really into customising motorcycles, and that you can't help going on and on about them, but well, that has nothing to do with us here.

Pio Marmaï: Well, if you want to stop a motorcycle, you stop it. With a baby, you can't. You're right; they have nothing to do with each other.

Rémi Bezançon: Yes, but even if you did lose some of your hearing, I hope you enjoyed the shoot, because I was delighted to work with you.

Pio Marmaï: I was too. You and I are really getting to know each other. We've already made two movies together. That's a nice beginning. And it has its advantages: I get the feeling I understand right away what you want from me. I like the fact that you always leave me some room for improvisation. That's a sign of confidence. No, sincerely, working with you and your crew, that I'm already so used to, is super cool. Well, other than for the time I had to change the baby's diapers...

Rémi Bezançon: ...and you did it so well, we had to redo the scene. You looked like too perfect a father, when we wanted you to look like you were going through an ordeal.

Pio Marmaï: It's just that the baby was teething, and it was screaming so much, all I wanted to do was make it stop. So I applied myself. I dug through my memories and thought about the time I put a Harley 1000 Fonte back together again with my eyes blindfolded.

Rémi Bezançon: Motorcycles again...

Pio Marmaï: Don't try and change the subject. So I changed the baby and, normally, you would put a little bit of egg yolk and avocado on the diaper. Except this time, you left real, fresh stuff. And of course you didn't warn me...

Rémi Bezançon: It looked more realistic!


Interview by Brooke Hunter