This is the event in “Tomorrow belongs to us”: the arrival of Victoria Abril for a plot called “The secret of Rebecca”. The artistic producer of the series tells us more about this ark rich in emotion, humor, and danger.
After extremely eventful intrigues devoted to Victoire (Solène Hébert) and Anna (Maud Baecker), which put an end to two emblematic couples of the series, Tomorrow belongs to us will create the event throughout the weeks to come with an exceptional arch imagined around the guest presence of Victoria Abril, who made her first appearance on the air Monday as the exuberant Rebecca Flores.
The opportunity for the writers of the daily TF1 soap opera to take an interest in the past of Raphaëlle (Jennifer Lauret) and Sébastien Perraud (Xavier Deluc), Rebecca’s daughter and ex-husband, who had been introduced in Tomorrow belongs to us in September and wisely awaited their great family intrigue, rich in secrets and revelations, to which each character of the soap opera is entitled sooner or later.
Because if Rebecca, ex-glory of Latin music, is back in France after thirty years of absence, it is to get closer to her daughter, whom she supposedly abandoned at the age of nine, without giving any explanation. And her unexpected return, in addition to having the effect of a bomb on Raphaëlle, will bring back old buried secrets. And bring out a threat that could well endanger all members of the Perraud-Meffre clan.
At the helm of Tomorrow belongs to us since the start of the school year, Marc Kressmann, the new collection director and artistic producer of the successful TF1 series, spoke for us about the arrival of Victoria Abril in the great DNA family on the occasion of this plot and teased us what awaits us in the next episodes.
DashFUN: The character of Rebecca Flores, which we discovered on the air at the beginning of the week, was it written especially for Victoria Abril?
Marc Kressmann : Yes, completely. We had thought of Victoria Abril for another story, another character. But she was not available at the time of filming, as she was participating during the summer at MasterChef Celebrity in Spain. And then I had the idea of a story around it. Everyone really wanted her to come. So I wrote her a few pages, around Rebecca’s story. And she asked me to send her more elements, dialogue episodes, which we never do in this way on Tomorrow belongs to us.
So I started to write her story and she loved it. Because I imagined it all for her. I imagined a story around a character who returns to France, with nods to Pedro Almodovar’s film Stiletto Heels, which are totally assumed. And other cinematographic winks, to Hitchcock in particular. And Victoria loved it.
From there I wrote a good part of the ark and I made him read, week after week, the episodes, with its dialogue sequences. And we worked like that for a month, before she finally said “yes”. We fine-tuned things together, of course, but from the start we were on the same page when it came to what we wanted to tell. It was a great collaboration.
When the character of Raphaëlle Perraud, played by Jennifer Lauret, was imagined, did you already have in mind the main axes of her family history and her past?
It all happened at about the same time. When we introduced Raphaëlle, we had that in mind, yes. The story of his mother’s return, the secrets of this family. We watched the essays for the character of Raphaëlle and for some actresses we said to ourselves “Oh yes, she could really be Victoria Abril’s daughter”. But we hadn’t spoken with Victoria yet, we just wanted to bring her over.
And the father, Sébastien Perraud, played by Xavier Deluc, was also installed around that. It all happened a bit at the same time, quite organically. And the return of Rebecca allowed the return of Xavier Deluc, whom we had made appear in two episodes, a little bit before, with the idea of making him come back then at that time, for this arch event that you are going to discover on TF1. Everything was done a little in advance, intuitively.
And we created this family of lawyers, with the lawyer daughter and the lawyer father. While the mother, Rebecca, is a successful former Latin singer. That makes us a rather explosive family, quite different from the Roussels for example, but which works really well. With Victoria Abril, it inevitably throws (laughs).
Screenshot / TF1
Rebecca is coming back …
