Vincent Cassel opens up about Tina Kunakey, children and the role of Paul Gauguin

"As if I found myself somewhere in the Avataruniverse".

In a new film by Edouard Deluc, Vincent Cassel played the post-impressionist Paul Gauguin, an amateur who criticized the politicians and moral standards of European society. Discontent with social prejudice and led him in 1891 in French Polynesia. The "Gauguin: A Journey to Tahiti" (Gauguin — Voyage de Tahiti) tells exactly about this period of the artist's life. For the main role, Cassel had to lose 20 kg and live two months on the island: "I had to look sick. Gauguin starved, he felt like an old man. To match the image, I decided to lose weight, " Vincent told WWD .

Paul Gauguin lived and worked in Tahiti for many years. In 1903 he died in remote Marquesas in poverty and loneliness. He was 54 years old.

 

However, for Vincent Cassel, two shooting months were not so painful: "To be honest, I have never felt so good. I was in Tahiti. As if I found myself somewhere in the universe of "Avatar" and took Ecstasy. At least that's how I felt every morning. I ate fruit and raw fish, at five in the morning surfed, surrounded by incredible people. I had a small hammock on the shore. "

About his Gogen, he says: "I decided to forget that he was a genius, and treated Paul as a man. I wanted to live this time like him. He believed in himself, despite all that had happened to him. He was brave enough to leave everything behind. But at the same time he was a coward. Because only the cowards leave the family. "

Cassel also had to leave his family and his beloved Tina Kunakey: "I do not think I would risk everything for the sake of art. This is not for me. The only thing that unites me and Gauguin is, perhaps, creative freedom. In the sense that no one was able to deprive him of what was in his head. And here I admire him. But the fact that he left his children is simply terrible. People are so different, but still the key to infinity is in caring for our children. Those minutes with them, which we sacrifice for the sake of something abstract, for example, art, talk about the incredible selfishness in us. I hope that I am not like that. " ( Vincent and his ex-wife Monica have two children.).

In Tahiti, Gauguin had a young muse, Tahura, whom her parents offered him. And in the film, the director gives her a lot of attention: "As a writer, Gauguin reduces their relationship to one side (we are talking about the book of the artist Noah Noah." - Ed.) and describes everything in a romantic way. - When I joined the project, I asked the director not to take on this role too young actress. Otherwise the whole film would be centered around her. And this is definitely not the story I wanted to tell. After all, the film is not about pedophilia, but about a man who lives in the modern world and tries to understand his darkest sides - for the sake of art. He did not have money, he lived surrounded by the poorest people on the island. Of course, the modern world looks at his relationship with the young girl in a completely different way. It is quite difficult for us to accept this fact, and for us, in principle, that such things still exist in some countries, sounds like madness. "

Сassel is concerned about how the world will accept the film in the era of the #MeToo movement: "I have something to explain to you. I'm not a Hollywood actor, but a French actor. But I do not think that in France in this sense the situation is radically opposite. Just the industry is smaller, everyone knows each other. And I am sure that we also have such problems as masochism. Of course, the situations are different, but I think not on the same scale as it happens in Hollywood. "

 

Photos: Getty Images