Antigang 2 – Alban Lenoir: “It was very enjoyable to shoot in a Decathlon”

Meeting with the interpreter of Niels Cartier and Benjamin Rocher, director of this second opus.

One year after its release on Disney+, Antigang: The Future is broadcast for the first time unencrypted this Monday evening on M6. We had met Alban Lenoirwho told us about his return in the shoes of Niels Cartier in this second part still directed by Benjamin Rocher.

The cop with unconventional methods left the force after his wife was killed in an intervention. Now a driving school instructor, the ex-cop has lost his enthusiasm, and must manage the strong temperament of his 14-year-old daughter (played by Cassiopée Mayance). But when the gang of robbers responsible for the death of his wife reappears, he intends to obtain revenge… In this sequel, we find part of the original cast (Stefi Celma, Jean-Toussaint Bernard, Oumar Diaw, Sebastien Lalanne, Jean Reno) but also new arrivals (Sofia Essaïdi, Adrien Ménielle, Barbara Elizabeth Bühl…).

FIRST: The first Anti-gang was released in 2015. Wasn't it too complicated to bring together a good part of the team from the first film eight years later?

Benjamin Rocher: In terms of schedules it's always a little complicated, but everyone was super happy to be able to play together again. In 2015, it was a real meeting for part of the cast: Stefi [Celma]Jean-Toussaint [Bernard]Jeans [Reno]Sebastian [Lalanne]… We just couldn't wait to do it again, and see the evolution of these characters. What quickly became clear was that the film was going to be centered on the character of Alban, and on the energy that he already gave off in the first one, that is to say the “mad dog” side. , funny, very daredevil, fast, and in action. But as our desires as spectators and creators have evolved, it has also become a film about the father-daughter relationship, about the alliance between work and family.

Alban, lately we find you mainly in action films, but you also come from comedy. Anti-gang It's a bit of a mix of both…

Alban Lenoir: It's a perfect mix for total artistic development. It combines everything I like: being in comedy, getting into emotion, and following it up with an action scene, all in the same film. It was quite enjoyable filming.

BR: Yes, in this film we move from one emotion to another, without them defusing. These mixes are not always easy to obtain. It mostly depends on the performers. And in France, we're lucky: we have Alban Lenoir (Alban laughs). No but it's true! He knows how to manage several emotions, and ensure pure action with always good rigor of interpretation.

In this opus we still have a lot of fighting scenes. Alban, have you performed all your stunts?

AL: Yes, it seems to me that I did 100% right?

BR: Yes, there were even some that weren't planned (laughs)

AL: Oh yes, I got myself a good jailbreak. There was a little wavering moment where everyone wondered if I was going to get up, but everything is fine.

BR: He is a very generous actor, even when it is not planned he does stunts! More seriously, the advantage of having an actor who does his own stunts is to be able to do close-ups and have his expressions and reactions on camera in the middle of a fight.

In France, how long does it take to prepare for a heavy scene?

AL: There aren't really any rules. We still remain in a restricted economy so we don't have two weeks to shoot a scene, as can be the case in the United States. But of course, we try as much as possible to prepare the choreographies in advance, to storyboard them. Sometimes when we arrive on set we realize that it doesn't look like what we had imagined, so we have to adapt and improvise certain things…

BR: On the set, you have to go very quickly so it's in your best interest to be well prepared. It can range from half a day to two days. For example, the scene in the Decathlon is in two parts. There are several camera movements, more props, more characters… It takes more time.

AL: Benjamin really faced an incredible challenge in managing to complete this film in such a short time.

Do you have a favorite action scene?

BR: I am very sensitive to the scene with Ricci and Boulez [interprétés par Stéfi Celma et Jean-Toussaint Bernard] in the hospital corridor, because she tells a lot about the couple they form. I have a certain affection for the action scenes in the film in general, not for a certain physical prowess, but because it tells a lot about the characters. There's another one that makes me die of laughter every time, it's the one where Alban fights against the character played by Sergej Onopko. He arrives confident and then he ends up losing his baseball bat, and his means too.

AL: I had a great time in the Decathlon. It was very enjoyable to shoot in this place, it seems to me that it has never been seen before. There were a lot of objects in this setting, we wanted to use everything. We had to limit our staging ideas due to lack of time.

Alban, I read that you wanted to become Van Damme when you were little. Are there other cinema figures that made you dream?

AL: At the opposite end there was Jim Carrey, notably with the release ofAce Ventura. Anyway, the 90s were a bit like the blessed years. There was the release of Seven also, it was truly an incredible decade, I'm very nostalgic.

BR: Oh boomers…

For AKA on Netflix, Alban worked a lot on his physique for the character of Adam. You turned Anti-gang just after: didn't this weight gain “pose a problem” for the character of Niels Cartier, who is supposed to have stopped hanging up years ago?

BR: I met Alban while he was filming AKA to talk to him about my film. I saw it, and I said 'ok, it's a huge monster', it was quite impressive. But he immediately reassured me: 'don't worry, I'll be ready, I'll have the right physique'. As he knows very well what he is doing, I gave him blind trust and indeed, he was ready.

AL: I still had to be in good physical condition for what was required on Anti-gang. We completed the action scenes in a short period of time. And it builds to a crescendo in the film, since my character takes control of his body and his faculties. In fact, I especially needed a lot of management support. I was coming out of this very dark shoot, and then I had to show up all sunny. In the first days, it was complicated to find Niels. Fortunately Benjamin was there to tell me 'so, that's good, but that's not it at all'.

BR: These are really two different proposals. When I watched AKA, I had a really hard time recognizing him, even though I know him well. But hey, I didn't have to intervene much, the “dirty kid” side quickly returned.