“Kompromat” by Jérôme Salle with Gilles Lellouche is expected in theaters on Wednesday September 7th. Before the release, we met the director and the actor to discuss the complicated shooting of the film.
Kompromat: Gilles Lellouche against the Russian state
Adapted from a true story, the film Kompromat directed by Jérôme Salle is a heart-pounding thriller about the struggle of an ordinary man trapped by the Russian state.
The action takes place in 2017. Gilles Lellouche plays Mathieu Roussel, an employee of the Alliance Française in Russia, victim of a plot. False compromising documents were used by the Russian secret services to harm him. Incarcerated in very difficult conditionshe only has escape to save his skin.
A grueling shoot
The film was shot in Lithuania in the midst of a health crisis. Shortly after the arrival of the team on site, the country entered confinement. An experiment hard for Gilles Lellouche, but ultimately salutary to better get into the skin of his character.
I can’t talk about Lithuania because I haven’t seen it. We arrived there when the country was still unaffected by the Covid, I quarantined, and when we left the country was confined. It was a funny experience. It was very austere. When the cameras were off, I found myself alone in my hotel room. I lunched alone, I dined alone. We were few French in a Lithuanian team and the atmosphere was very special. But all of that fed Kompromat and my character. I was really in the guts of this man in the face of his loneliness
told us Gilles Lellouche, supported by Jérôme Salle:
The shooting was really complicated, but paradoxically it served the film. We ourselves were in a kind of daily fight to keep the train moving.
An actor’s delight
To interpret the main role of KompromatJérôme Salle told us that he had very quickly thought of Gilles Lellouche. For two reasons :
The first is that I am very sensitive to the evolution of his work. He becomes denser, more complete, I feel in him this desire to progress. He allows himself to express a form of fragility, of tenderness. The second reason is that Gilles has something extremely “French”. I wanted my character to be like that.
For his part, Gilles Lellouche very quickly accepted the proposal. First of all because he says he appreciates the work of Jérôme Salle, with whom he had already collaborated on Anthony Zimmer in 2005. And above all because he says he is very sensitive to stories of injustice.
I’m very inspired by movies like The Fugitive with Harrison Ford. Ordinary guys with extraordinary things happening to them. I love these films where you wonder if the hero will make it. I almost had it when playing this character. I was in and out. It was a real pleasure as an actor.
