It’s impossible not to hold the utmost respect for Tahar Rahim. Of his own volition, he’s pulled himself up into the top tier of French actors, demonstrating in film after film a singular inventiveness and naturale only an artist could possess. Fifteen years after debuting in Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, which earned him two César Awards (France’s national film award), he’s had an eclectic film career playing roles French actors with Algerian roots don’t typically get cast for.
In fall of 2024, Rahim will appear in yet another epic role, that of Charles Aznavour, a titan in French music history renowned the world over. Rahim and Aznavour have their fair share in common: they’re both French of foreign ancestry, they’re both workaholics, they’ve both made it to Hollywood, they both come from big families, and they have similar tenor voices with a natural touch of vibrato. Monsieur Aznavour is set to release in a few months directed by Grand Corps Malade (Fabien Marsaud) and Mehdi Idir. It looks back on 50 years of the crooner’s life. We met with Tahar Rahim at his publicist’s office just off the Champs-Élysées to talk about shooting this film that put a swing in the actor’s hips. “One of the best shoots of my life,” he said with a smile.
The Kurator: Physically, you and Charles Aznavour both have soft eyes, and that’s about it for common traits. How did you go about embodying this character who’s so different from you?
Tahar Rahim: I started by working on my body. Aznavour was a lot slimmer than me, and I’m 1m74 in height, ten centimeters taller than he was, so I had to lose six or sept kilos. Then I looked to how he carried himself and trained myself to hold my shoulders up a little higher and more forward the way he did. I worked on being more bent at the elbow the way he was. After that, I studied his body language and facial expressions. He was always speaking with his lips protruded, and he’d blink a lot whenever he was tired. Also, six to eight hours a day for six months straight, I took singing and piano lessons. Like him, I have a bit of natural vibrato in my voice, but I had to work on singing in key and in rhythm without ever missing a high note. Then about three months before filming, I started talking like him to make sure his accent and phrasing were second nature to me. I opened the doors of my life up to Charles.
TK: Biopics operate almost like a laboratory in which two people get melded into one. How far did you go in your transformation?
TR: The idea was to meet him in the middle and have both of us shine through. I didn’t want to simply imitate him, nor for that matter did I want to be unrecognisable. I told the prosthetics artist to apply as little as possible, and so minimal prosthetics were added. We tweaked the nose, of course. Charles got a nose job in the 1950s on the advice of Edith Piaf. Early on, he had a hunchback. We also did different eyebrows and wigs corresponding to different parts of his career. The make-up work was fastidious and took four hours a day.
TK: How was it for you being involved in such a demanding film shoot?
TR: Like everyone involved in the film, I found it incredible. We all cried when it was over. It will remain a very memorable experience for all of us as artists. Directors Fabien Marsaud and Mehdi Idir grew very close over course of filming. Both of them are deeply good people and know how to guide actors. Their style of filmmaking makes you feel like you’re part of a family, and even ahead of very intense scenes they keep things very laid back. I also think we all really wanted to honour Charles Aznavour’s memory since one way or another we were all raised on his songs and all have positive associations with his music. Personally, I have distinct memories from childhood watching him on talk shows with Michel Drucker and Jean-Pierre Foucault. In 2004 when I moved to Paris to act, I used to listen to him non-stop on my Discman. It swept me off my feet.
TK: What’s his most remarkable character trait in your eyes?
TR: His selflessness. He spared no ounce of heart and effort in his creative work to achieve what he set out to. He wrote over 1,000 songs. There’s no one else like him. He didn’t start to become known till around age 30, and that after suffering humiliating failure after humiliating failure. He composed for others, but no one apart from himself and his family thought he could make it on his own. His art came first, always, and he never rested on his laurels. He used to say he worked 17 hours a day. He read a lot and even dabbled in portraiture of his friends. He didn’t spend a lot of time with loved ones. That’s a major difference between him and me. For him, being good to his family meant providing for them.
TK: But there are a number of ways in which you two resemble each other rather closely.
TR: We’re both children of immigrants. We both come from socio-economic backgrounds that didn’t necessarily predispose us to being artists. We likewise both dreamed of breaking down barriers. Charles made it all the way to Vegas, he trained Liza Minnelli, etc. I love working in different places all across the world. Early on, Charles moved heaven and Earth to make a name for himself as a music-hall singer, working odd jobs on the side to provide for his impoverished family. I was in school for a while, then I moved to Paris where I worked as a factory hand, then a server at a night club, then in a sales department at a software company, taking acting courses in the afternoon. For two years, I hardly ever slept, which was very intense.
TK: Neither of you were destined for celebrity.
TR: Celebrity takes you by surprise. It’s even affected my family. People don’t look at us the same way anymore. Sociologists say you jump a social class every three generations, so celebrity has been a bit hard to deal with. We have what we call class anxiety, which makes you feel like imposters. That’s why I stayed out of the media for a long time. I was nervous about losing control of myself and getting too big of a head. I’m sure because of that I’ve missed out on a lot, but the risk for me was too great. Aznavour always embraced his celebrity. He used to say, “I’m happy to make this my living. I didn’t steal anything. I’ve earned this.”
TK: Did you ever think about using a stage name like Aznavour did? [His real last name is Aznavourian]
TR: Whenever that was suggested to me, I turned it down flat out. I’ve always wanted to honour my parents’ name, the name they passed down to me. That was important to me even before I had children of my own.
TK: Did you ever meet Charles Aznavour before he died in 2018?
TR: No. I’m friends with Rachid Kallouche, Charles Aznavour’s son-in-law [and the producer of Monsieur Aznavour], and in 2015 he invited me to see Aznavour sing at the Dôme de Paris–Palais des Sports. He offered to take me backstage to meet Charles, but I turned it down because I didn’t want to bother him. He was already getting up there in age [95 at the time]. It was three years before his death. During the concert, I remember him starting off slow but gradually building and building as the show went on. It was surprising how open he was with the audience. In the 1970s, he used to wear a lot of fur, sunglasses, watches, but when he got on stage, he was bearing no outward signs of wealth out of concern that the crowd didn’t have the same privileges he did. He forgot lyrics at times but simply said to the audience, “That happens at my age. Let’s take it from the top.” It created real intimacy with the audience. We felt like we were in his home. While preparing for the biopic, I sat down to speak with five of his six children, who taught me even more about what he was like in private.
TK: At age 17, Charles Aznavour became close with pianist and composer Pierre Roche, and the formed a duo. Do you have a consistent acting partner in anyone?
TR: I’m more of a lone wolf, but I’m fortunate to have had the unconditional support of my mother, which is what has pushed me over the edge. When I started getting work in the US, I met an acting coach who became very important to me. He died three years ago. His name was Bob Meyer. He did painting and play writing as well. He didn’t speak a lick of French, despite having lived in France for 30 years. He was a very unique person. We’d discuss characters at length. We’d draw up schemas locating different characters in the story arc and how that character’s emotions come into play into the film or series. He’s the only person I’d ever call a mentor. I miss him a great deal. I met him around the time I had my first child, and he was something like a father figure to me.
TK: Do you go back and critique your own film performances?
TR: No. If I were an athlete, I’d do that because their work is all body mechanics, but acting is very different, more inward. Over the past few years, I’ve been working with a psychologist to try to enter the headspace of my characters.
TK: We can finish up with a nice word about the United Arab Emirates! Have you already visited?
TR: I’ve been to the Ajyal Film Festival a few times and presented films in Dubai. I’ve always been welcomed very graciously, and Dubai is where I had café blanc for the first time. I also played a prince in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Qatari film Black Gold. We filmed in Qatar because the sand dunes there roll all the way to the sea. I remember feeling like I was just another part of the elements while also feeling like a mere speck standing in the greatness of creation.
