Oscar-winning actor Jean Dujardin reveals fear of being being typecast: ‘You’ll just be that character’

Jean’s latest role is as a jacket-obsessed serial killer in Deerskin (Picture: Getty)

The French star of The Artist, 49, talks playing a serial killer, the Oscars and how jogging brings peace.

Your character Georges in black comedy Deerskin is very weird! He tries to rid the world of all jackets apart from his own deerskin one, then starts killing people. Is he a serial killer?

Yeah, I think he’s more a marginal character than a serial killer, really. More than killing people, he’s actually working towards his own suicide. He is more than a killer.

I didn’t play with violence and I didn’t feel any violence in the character itself. I think the film is somewhere else.

The film actually leaves enough room for people to deposit their own fears, their own dark sides, to find if there is some sort of catharsis in themselves.

The character touched me more because he is really, truly alone and more than
a psychopath.

Where do you like to be alone?

So I have a great pleasure when I wish to be alone. It’s not really a place – it’s running. I love running and I do run everywhere and anytime.

Even when I’m on a film shoot, I can run in the city and I can run in the countryside.

I love observing people so, obviously, when I’m in France, if I walk then people recognise me. When I run, they don’t recognise me – because I’m quicker than them! I run to music and choose it according to the place I’m in.

What’s on your playlist?

Music from films. John Barry, Henry Mancini… I really like that. That’s my great pleasure.

Winning an Oscar early in your career might be considered a poisoned chalice for an actor. Was that the case for you on The Artist?

No. I had no desire for it, to get this prize, there was no strategy. I was in a film that was greatly appreciated and it was wonderful.

But I can’t say there is a before and after the Oscar. It did not destroy me. It did not transform me at all.

My life was great before the Oscar and it was equally great after. When you say something like this in France, people are suspicious.

But basically, I’m a normal person and the only thing I love is my job. I don’t think there is such a thing as the best actor or the best film.

This exists, I would say, in sport – my wife [ice dancer Nathalie Péchalat] is a sportswoman of a high level.

Jean’s wife Nathalie Péchalat is a European Championship-winning ice dancer (Picture: Laurent Benhamou/ SIPA/ REX/ Shutterstock)

Did you ever train as an actor?

No, I wrote a one-man show. I started doing a stand-up act in bars and cafés.
I didn’t want to go back to school, a theatre school, to teach myself how to act.

I was acting already with my characters, what I saw and observed, and sharing them with people.

Was it fun being a stand-up comedian?

I didn’t have that much fun because I was alone. I didn’t want stand-up to be my profession but I had to start somewhere.

In the beginning, I had fun because I could see whether I was capable of this. And all of the characters I wrote made me better.

Did you always dream of being in movies?

I didn’t allow myself to think that way. I didn’t think about cinema. It could’ve ended at the cabaret stage.

Then I had TV and I thought, ‘I’ll do TV’. In France, you stay in TV. But I crossed over and happy accidents kept happening. I never stopped working and one thing brought me the next thing. It was never a career plan.

Then I did a movie, Brice De Nice, based on a character from my stand-up act. It was a huge hit. When you have four million ticket sales in France, people listen. And then you don’t want to f*** up the next one.

Were you worried about getting typecast?

Yes, of course. I’ve always been put into boxes with labels on them.

Don’t do a one-man show. Don’t do a TV series, you’ll just be that character. Don’t do Brice, you’ll just do that. Don’t do OSS 117, you’ll always be a secret agent. Every time.

What’s funny is to make liars out of people. They call me Brice, they call me Loulou from [TV series] A Guy, A Girl.

Just not to stagnate in one role, that’s the essential thing. Always surprise people and jump from one box to another.

Working with ‘obsessional’ director Polanski was a learning experience for Jean (Picture: Julien De Rosa/ EOA-EFE/ REX/ Shutterstock)

Do you have a good sense of humour about yourself? You often play daft characters…

When I’m on my own I either get depressed or I laugh about myself! Somehow I realised that it was doing me better to laugh about myself.

I have no difficulties doing so – maybe there is some sort of catharsis that is at play with these kind of parts. Maybe they enable me to actually express or get out something of myself.

You just worked with Roman Polanski on An Officer And A Spy. What was that like?

Very tiring! We all know him… he’s a rather obsessional director, he works with a lot of rigour.

But I think it’s great in the same year to be able to work with Deerskin and Polanski because it gives me the possibility to learn and to experience a different sensation when I’m working – which is really what I’m looking for in this profession.

Deerskin is in cinemas from today

MORE : ‘We had to shut down Piccadilly Circus’: Secrets from the Harry Potter sets as location manager reveals how she made movie magic

MORE : Bond favourite James Norton reveals what he’d bring to film’s legacy after ‘amazing’ Daniel Craig steps down