Omar Sy knows you may see the title of his new movie, “French Lover,” and cringe.
“But actually, we want to break that cliche,” the actor explains. “That’s why we decided to take the title, because we want to break that cliche. We wanted to show another type of French lover. There’s a new type. It’s [a proposition]. We want to show something else. Modernize.”
The 47-year-old French actor, known for starring in the Netflix series “Lupin,” is the star of a new rom-com on Netflix that explores the trope of regular girl falls in love with movie star — a twist on “Notting Hill,” if you will. Sy plays Abel Camara, a famous actor who is growing disillusioned with the industry, who meets a struggling waitress in the midst of a divorce. Sparks fly, but the two have to wrestle with what they each want, and the reality of the different worlds they occupy.
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Sy was eager to work with the film’s director Nina Rives, whom he first met when she was the script supervisor on a movie he did with her husband, Hugo Gélin. When he first read the script, he was inspired by the way it talked about the film industry.
“It was also something I wanted to touch on with my movies. It was the first time we had something like that, where it was not parody, it was more tender about the industry,” he says. “I wanted to have that eye on the industry because we often have something satiric about it, and I wanted to have a different point of view and talk about it differently. That’s why I think Abel is the perfect character for that, to touch the industry.”
Abel falls for Marion, played by Sara Giraudeau, whose life is far from as glamorous as his but who is surrounded by a close family, something Abel himself is lacking.
“[The film] is talking about acting, about fame, about also all those layers that you can have. People can look at you and think everything is good in your life, but you’re struggling with your own fights inside yourself, and how can you evolve as a man when you have that fame?” Sy says. “All those little things were very interesting for me, and I think I was mature enough to talk about it. Abel could be a version of me without my family. If I didn’t have my wife and my kids, I could be Abel Camara. I could struggle more. I think I have the luck and the blessing of being surrounded by the love of my family. I’ve built something else on the side of my career and I think it makes me stronger. And I think for Abel, that’s his struggle. That’s the only thing he has. He has his career so he’s very fragile, and he doesn’t have the right distance from it.”
Up next, the actor pivots from the romantic comedy world to an “Extraction” action series with Netflix.
“That’s the beauty of what we do. You go from one project to another completely different [project] That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” he says. “Always doing something different, something refreshing, something new. It’s like an adventure.”