Isabelle Nanty delivers a performance that does not go unnoticed in the comedy “The Profs”, playing an English teacher who loves a chainsaw. Yet, as sometimes happens in the world of cinema, the actress might never have had this role.
Teachers : from comics to cinema
Adaptation of the comic strip by Pica and Erroc, the film Teachers transposes fairly faithfully to the screen the universe deployed on paper. Head to the Jules Ferry high school, which has the sad reputation of being the worst establishment in all of France. With its success rate in the bac of only 12%, it is far from welcoming enlightenment between its walls. The inspector of the Academy offers to try one last blow by recruiting handpicked professors. Except that they do not intend to recruit cadors of education. On the contrary, his goal is to go find the worst teachers in order to pit them against the worst students. For the establishment to be saved, it must next time reach a threshold of at least 50% success.
At the helm of the film, we find Pierre-François Martin-Laval, also known by the nickname of PEF. He surrounded himself with a cast made up of popular heads, including Christian Clavier, Kev Adams, Arnaud Ducret and Isabelle Nanty. He knows the latter very well sinceshe was his comedy teacher. It was obvious to him and a tribute to have her cast in the role of a teacher. He then thought of entrusting him with the character of Gladys, an eccentric English teacher capable of drawing a chainsaw during a lesson.
However, Isabelle Nanty was not immediately convinced by such a role. She even refused to star in the movie, because she didn’t want to play someone bad anymore. PEF was nevertheless convinced that she had to play Gladys. He was right to believe it because the actress changed her tune when she discovered the script. She also explained her choice during an interview at Women’s Journal :
When PEF was writing he told me “hey, i’m writing a role of a terrible girl for you“and I told him that I didn’t want to play the villain anymore. And then when he finished his script and it was going up, I wasn’t going to refuse! So I accepted by saying that it was really there. last time I played a villainous role like this.
The experience was rather pleasant, since she came back in The Teachers 2, a sequel set in England. This second part was made possible thanks to the commercial success of the previous one, which counted almost 4 million admissions in French theaters.
