august-2011

alongside London pal Boy George. De Caunes
dresses in a casual-chic style and darts around Paris
on a scooter, his urban steed. Which might explain
his sense of chivalry, a quality with which we can
expect him to imbue the next fi lm he is directing,
about the gunning down of a French female MP in
1994 by hired motorbike assassins.
But the 57-year-old comedian/presenter/actor/
author/director is more Lancelot than Tarantino.
Respect for those who ply their trade in the public
gaze comes from a man born into limelight. De
Caunes is the son of French TV royalty Georges de
Caunes and Jacqueline Joubert, who were smallscreen
movers and shakers in the early years of
French television. Surprisingly in someone so media
born and bred, paparazzi stunts and mugging for
headlines leave a bad taste in his mouth.
A much-loved one-man national institution,
Antoine de Caunes has projected his Gallic persona
beyond French borders, notably in the UK through
Eurotrash, the off beat magazine show that he
co-hosted with Jean-Paul Gaultier from the early
1990s till 2007 on Channel 4.
But the clowning de Caunes fi rst broke through on
French TV as class joker on trendy evening magazine
show Nulle Part Ailleurs. Does he miss those crazy
“seat of your pants” days of live national TV? “No, I
don’t miss it. I did it for seven years. Then I did
Rapido (also for Channel 4 in Britain) and Eurotrash.
But I still act, and in this way I continue to disguise
myself. Now I have moved on to travel
documentaries, which I present as the French
traveller with my exaggerated French style and Gallic
ticks.”
Part of growing older more gracefully is his
long-term commitment to charity projects. His
association with Solidays (a French charity music
58 metropolitan
festival that raises awareness about HIV and AIDS)
remains as strong as ever, and his commitment as a
fi gurehead over the past 12 years has helped turn it
into one of France’s biggest annual events for HIV/
AIDS.
His involvement started out small-scale as an
auctioneer, once selling one of Mitterrand’s
signature hats. But his passion for publicising the
work of Solidays led him to lose his cool and Mr Nice
Guy image live on the French evening news. “I did an
interview with Claire Chazal on the day of the death
of Michael Jackson. I wanted only to talk about
Solidays and had asked them not to ask me
questions about the death of Jackson. The fi rst
question was my reaction to the death of Michael
Jackson. I gave a polite response. Then the second
question and then a third were about the singer too.
It was then that I got pretty unpleasant.”
Aside from the serious work of Solidays he is also
“British comedians get
up and demolish their
peers. In France you
don’t do that”
an on-off presenter of the French Oscars, Les Césars,
and on a mission to make the award ceremony more
viewer-friendly – something that was notably
achieved for the Golden Globes by Ricky Gervais
earlier this year.
“I saw Gervais and I loved it! Ricky was totally
radical. But it is typically British. The comedian gets
up there and sets about demolishing his peers. In
France you just don’t do that,” he says with a hint of
sorrow but still hopeful for a new-look Césars.
Now a grandfather, just two years ago de Caunes
became a father for the third time with his wife, TV
presenter Daphné Roulier. “It is chaos in the family
because my son is the uncle of my granddaughter!
Jules gets on very well with Nina who is my daughter
Far left : De Caunes
and Eurotrash copresenter
Jean-Paul
Gaultier.
Left : Antoine de
Caunes with his
daughter Emma at
Cannes in 2008
De Caunes et Jean-Paul
Gaultier, son complice
d’Eurotrash.
Antoine de Caunes et
sa fi lle Emma, à Cannes
en 2008