Michel Piccoli

Overview

Born
December 27, 1925 · Paris, France
Died
May 12, 2020 · Saint-Philbert-sur-Risle, Eure, France (stroke)
Birth name
Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli
Height
5′ 11½″ (1.82 m)

Biography

Family

Spouses
Children
Parents

Trivia

Was good friends with Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. They all supported the communist movement, but Piccoli disapproved of the totalitarian regimes in former Eastern Europe.
Was the favorite co-star of his best friend, actress Romy Schneider.
Very good friends with late Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni and French actress Catherine Deneuve.
Supported young directors by producing their movies.
Despite an extraordinary career with more than 200 projects in 60 years of activity, Piccoli never won a César award (the French equivalent for the Oscars) and only received four nominations as Best Actor.

Quotes

This métier necessitates farce. If you are bewitched by your own personality, bewitched by yourself, by the public or by the camera - the actor is inevitably immodest - but possesses a great awareness of the comic. I rather like the Italian expression "io faccio l'attore." The Italians don't say "I am an actor"; they say "io faccio l'attore." I would like to follow this idea to its logical end, to act like a marionette.
It often happens that I listen to the way my partner speaks and respond accordingly. Sometimes I act alone; sometimes I am extremely attentive to my partner, in order to juggle with what s/he contributes. An attentive listening can suffice to act. I have even explored this possibility to the nth degree, in a sort of improvisation based uniquely on listening to my partner and the director, because deliberately as an exercise I hadn't read the script beforehand. I don't remember the title of the film [...]. I was fortunate to be more on the watch for the director, in the theatre or in the cinema, than of myself or of the character I play, and even of my partner. Listening, entering into the secret, has always been my way keeping my bearings - in order to be the best marionette that they had imagined. I have never been self-sufficient, unlike many actors. I like extremely discreet actors, who thus open up the imagination. To be really immodest, you would have to let loose in way that you would never dare in real life; I can't stand actors who let go unenthusiastically or modestly.
Finally, I have played many loners who were both cerebral and physical. If I had the energy for it, I would write my two lives, psychoanalyze myself via the psychoanalysis of the characters whom I've played. That could explain why I went in this direction, why different directors employed me in an ultimately similar way. An introspection of myself and of the characters with whom I had a feast, to talk in a culinary way.
When I act, I am rather far away from the film's crew, in the camera but distant from everyone; same thing in the theatre. Nevertheless, the acting must be very precise; the focus is sharp; the sounds of the text are audible, as clear as they can be. At the same time, I like very much to improvise in acting, like a painter adding a stroke here or there -then something faint or completely dark becomes visible, where we don't see the inner workings. I like to work in disorder and with the disorder of my partner, and also with the disorder that can exist in the director's imaginary or that of the writer, to have this kaleidoscope in me and to try make something of it immediately comprehensible. Or rather often, I enjoy being very comprehensible, and I introduce a lost moment, a blank, and an empty space in order to take off again in the construction that has been asked of me [...]. To interrupt a sentence, to change key. I like to be very sure of what I am going to do and thanks to that, to allow myself shortcuts. To this idea of disorder that I practice should be added: imagination. It's a matter of remaining on hold in the disorder that can exist when you think or say something. It would be the opposite of an automatic mechanism, of an expertise or of a professionalism. In fact, I like constantly to do exercises. There are musicians who practice all the time but we actors are not able to do that. We don't have an instrument, except if you say we are our own instrument, and yet [...] I always try to continue searching and working for the moment where you have to deliver. The Italian comic actor Toto was a role model for me. He was more than an actor; he was in his imagination, entirely. It is said that he never learned his text: when he had something long to say, he took off in a delirium, a logorrhea whose end his partners would await. It wasn't ham-acting or disregard for his fellow actors. He was inventing, writing as he acted what he had to play. I would like very much to be able to do that.
[on Brigitte Bardot] With Brigitte the relations were very courteous but no more than that. She did not want to make an effort to understand.