There is plenty to talk about. On Depardieu’s passport he lists his occupation as actor-winemaker–which is accurate, if understated. Both are obsessions. Depardieu oversees 16 vineyards around the world, where he produces such labels as Cuvee Cyrano, a nod to his Oscar-nominated role. Since his cinematic debut in “Cry of the Cormoran” more than 30 years ago, Depardieu has appeared in nearly 150 films. In the next four weeks he has four films opening in France, including French director Graham Guit’s arresting mystery “Pact of Silence” and Norwegian director Ole Bornedal’s 19th-century epic “I Am Dina.” He also does a riotous turn as a French-expat barman in Matt Dillon’s “City of Ghosts,” set in Cambodia. And Depardieu has spent the past few weeks shooting two films simultaneously: Anne Fontaine’s “Nathalie X,” a love-triangle story, and Francis Veber’s “Tais-toi” (“Shut Up”), a comedy in which, he says, he plays “an idiot.”
It’s fair to say that Gerard Depardieu is the hardest-working man in French cinema–and maybe the entire movie business. He’s also one of the most gifted. “Like Brando, Anna Magnani–I put him in that league,” says Dillon. “Actors with real passion, intelligence and an animalistic quality.” Depardieu’s strength is his ability to embrace life, soak it in, then project emotion into the camera without hesitation. “Gerard’s sense of observation is extraordinary,” says Veber. “Lots of actors lose their focus because they are looking at their bellybutton. Gerard looks at the world, and it nourishes him.”
But Depardieu’s insatiable hunger may also be his greatest weakness: for every masterpiece, there is a string of minor roles that attract little attention, are rarely challenging and surely don’t advance his career. “Most of these films I made for no money, because friends needed me,” he says. “And sadly for them, the critics say, ‘What’s he doing there again?’ I’m just giving a little bit of joy to life and helping to run the machine.” His friends see it differently. “Gerard has to be on set, in a role, all the time,” says Veber. “It’s his oxygen.” Adds Jean-Paul Rappeneau, who directed Depardieu in “Cyrano de Bergerac” and the upcoming drama “Bon Voyage”: “Gerard suffers from a bulimia of work, of life. It’s all or nothing.”
That’s a coping mechanism he developed to escape an unhappy childhood. Depardieu was born in 1948 in the dreary town of Chateauroux, in central France. His father was an illiterate alcoholic, and his mother later told him she tried to abort him with a knitting needle. As a young teen he ran away and moved in with a pair of prostitutes, then later hitchhiked around France. Eventually he settled in Paris, where he joined the Theatre National Populaire repertory company. There he met and married Elisabeth Guignot, a fellow acting student seven years his senior.
His first major cinematic role was in “Les Valseuses” (“Going Places”) in 1974, a provocative comedy that shocked even the libertine French–and made him a star. In 1980, Francois Truffaut cast him with Catherine Deneuve in “The Last Metro,” a love story set in Nazi-occupied Paris. Depardieu was praised for his nuanced performance and awarded the Cesar for best actor. “Truffaut was the first to find the fragility, the little voice in Gerard,” says Rappeneau. “Suddenly we saw Gerard as a giant with the vulnerability of a child.” Rappeneau harnessed that vulnerability for Depardieu’s 1990 role in “Cyrano de Bergerac,” and Depardieu was nominated for a best-actor Oscar. But he didn’t win, and his career as a Hollywood leading man was cut short by a flap over an interview in which he allegedly admitted to “participating in” a gang rape at 9. (He insists the quote was mistranslated and that he had merely observed the attack.)
Depardieu’s all-or-nothing take on life has gotten him in plenty of trouble. He’s been in three motorcycle accidents, the worst in 1997, when his blood-alcohol level was five times the legal limit. He received a suspended sentence and a fine. In 2000 he underwent quintuple-bypass surgery, but he still drinks considerably, smokes filterless Gitanes and eats with abandon. And Elisabeth divorced him in 1996 after he fathered a child with another woman.
Lately, Depardieu has found peace through the writings of the fourth-century philosopher Saint Augustine–more so, he says, than from 30 years of psychoanalysis. “Saint Augustine poses the essential questions,” he explains. When he recently met Pope John Paul II in Rome, the pontiff asked Depardieu to re-create the saint on screen. Depardieu declined. Instead, he says, he would like to play Oscar Wilde. “Wilde is someone who carried the pain, the hypocrisy of the whole world,” says Depardieu, emptying his glass. “Everyone thinks they know pain, but they don’t.” Thankfully, we have Depardieu to show us.
