The first appearance of Catherine Frot? It was in The Charms of Summer, at 18

The actress returns this evening in Un air de famille, which gave her her first César in 1997.

Born to an engineer father and a mathematics professor mother in 1956, Catherine Frot has been passionate about theater since childhood. At 14, she joined the Versailles conservatory, and found her first role on screen in the series of five romantic TV films entitled The Charms of Summerbroadcast in 1975. At 18, she played Béatrice, a young girl with disturbing charm, raised by her mother (she was chosen for her resemblance to Marina Vlady).

Five years later, she debuted in the cinema in front of Alain Resnais' camera for a supporting role in My Uncle from America. Since then, Catherine Frot has become very popular with the French public: 13 of her films have exceeded one million admissions at the cinema (notably The idiots' dinnerwhich attracted 9.2 million spectators in theaters in 1998), and she was nominated ten times for the César, winning two trophies: that of best actress in a supporting role for A family resemblancein 1997, and for best actress for Daisyin 2016.

La Dilettante is worth it for the masterful interpretation of the dapper Catherine Frot [critique]

This evening, we will find her in Cédric Klapisch's classic, rebroadcast on France 5. With 2.4 million admissions upon its release, this French comedy classic was co-written by Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri based on their eponymous play performed in the 1990s. In the issue of First of November 1996, Jean-Yves Katelan recalled in his portrait of the actress that Catherine Frot was above all a theater actress.

nicknamed her “the marquise of the boards”he said that this woman usually having “a head to hold on to” had created his unforgettable “Yo-yo”, abandoned wife who regrets celebrating her birthday with her family because everyone doesn't care about her little person, playing her more than 250 times on stage: “She idealized this character very quickly, from the first rehearsals. And he hasn't changed since. He could have bordered on caricature, the overly-expected second-time nanny role. But she made him tougher. “The actor must be his own director. It's simpler in the theater, we depend so much less on technical data.” In fact, this job is terribly concrete. Catherine found her “Yo-yo” in the costumes, thinking a lot of Jacques Tati, a floral silhouette a little inspired by the 60s… “The hands, the attitudes, the gestures, I selected them one by one. Yoyo is attracted by objects: hold a glass, take off your shoe, hold on to your vest… He's a distressing character at the start, so we had to find reasons to love him. Reasons to love people often come through gestures. no? What I find moving in the theater is when we see an actor who has worked on his entire score.”

“We feel that there is a universe between Catherine Frot and this Yolande who cries, dances and laughs in A family resemblanceby Klapisch. However, it is she who lives it, who breathes it and who grows it, who makes us love her formidable banality while so many other actors, today, take pleasure in forcing the line, in mocking the reality of all the Yoyos…”concluded the journalist, visibly won over by his performance. In short, the editorial team advises you to watch again this evening A family resemblancefor Catherine Frot, but also for all the excellent actors who surround her: Jaoui and Bacri, of course, as well as Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Claire Maurier and Wladimir Yordanoff.

Cédric Klapisch pays tribute to Jean-Pierre Bacri: “You were not a complainer, you were a rebel”