Bruno Solo tells how he prepared to play a blind person

Remember. In 2018, Bruno Solo (soon to be back in Camera Café) played a guest in Blind Witness, the first episode of the sixth season of Cain, available in full on Salto. A somewhat special guest since he was blind. For Télé-Loisirs, the actor, who took over from Antoine Duléry for two investigations of Crimes parfaits and announced in the casting of a very special episode of Meurtres à…, the successful detective collection of France 3, returns on this enriching experience and reveals the character he was inspired by, the way he prepared himself or the personality who advised him.

Tele-Leisure. Describe Antoine Dupré, your character in Cain ?

Bruno Solo. He was blind and quite funny. He was suspected of a murder and had the arrogance to think that one could not imagine that he could be the culprit because he was blind. We actually noticed that he had used his handicap to commit a crime that he thought was perfect.

How did you build it?

I was inspired, all things considered of course, by the character played by Vittorio Gassman in Parfum de femmes, an absolutely extraordinary film by Dino Risi. It's the story of a sex-obsessed war hero who goes blind. He is a somewhat perverse and manipulative character, who cries over his past glory and his charm because now he only guesses at women through their perfume. I was inspired by his bearing of the head, his attitude, his looks and his way of being, a little arrogant. I was inspired by the craftiness of the guy who has seen and who no longer sees but who wants people to believe that it doesn't affect him. But not being Vittorio Gassman, I tried to compose a character in that spirit. I wanted it to be funny. I had also proposed the sequence where he breaks everything in the police station. I had played it like Claude Brasseur in An Elephant That's Misleading.

For his role as a blind person, Bruno Solo called… Gilbert Montagné

How did you prepare for this role?

Putting on a blindfold and moving around my house trying to get used to touching things and guessing where I was. I was trying to move around easily in a familiar place. Because at home, the blind are very economical with their gestures. They know where everything is: the sink, the dishes… At least for a blind person who lives alone, which was the case with my character. I wanted it to be felt that force of habit meant that he groped less than he could in a place he knew nothing about.

Have you met blind people?

I called Gilbert Montagné, with whom I had worked a few years ago on the occasion of two commercials I was doing. He was playing a flashy bay window salesman and at the end, potential customers would say to him, "It's funny, you remind me of someone." And Gilbert replied: "Yes, I am often told that I look like Gilbert Montagné" and, on leaving, he took his car and smashed through the garbage cans. It had been very complicated for Gilbert, who is the most enthusiastic, joyful, determined, funniest man one could imagine. Blind from birth, he had great difficulty walking as we walk. When we walk, a kind of natural pendulum takes place between our legs and our arms, but not for him. Him, he threw his right leg at the same time as his right arm, which gave a somewhat robotic walk. It was not easy for him, without a cane, without anything. We had worked together for three days to teach him to walk like a clairvoyant. He also had to lower his head a little because blind people tend to raise their chin a little.

How did you feel in the shoes of a blind person?

I used a lot of the senses I had left: smell, touch, hearing of course. Because blind people have extremely sharp ears. I realized their isolation even though most blind people adapt better than the hard of hearing.

"It is our duty to give a voice, a look... to those who cannot express themselves"

Should these roles go to actors suffering from the character's handicap?

I don't believe in that. We are not going to give a role to a blind person if he plays badly, but to an actor who feels capable of it. In Two cops on the docks [series broadcast on France 2 between 2011 and 2016, note], the actor who played the son of Jean-Marc Barr [Jean-Marie Hallégot, note] was hard of hearing but it remains rare. On the other hand, if he plays well, the role goes to him. We are not going to lie to each other, in this case in Caïn, they needed a little known guest to play the role and there is no sufficiently well-known blind actor. It is also our duty to give a voice, a look, a look, an attitude… to those who cannot necessarily express themselves.

In the end, what do you remember from this experience?

It was really interesting. Like when I played an obese, in Marjorie, the series with Anne Charrier [broadcast on France 2 between 2014 and 2019, note]. I was walking in the street with my fake belly, my fake arms, my fake legs, my huge neck… I lived in the skin of someone on whom the gaze is different, sometimes contemptuous. I felt more judged obese than blind. There is a compassion in the gaze that is fixed on those who do not see because the idea of ​​never seeing again is without doubt one of the most frightening handicaps even if, in my opinion, the isolation inherent in deafness is more violent.