Jean-Pierre Darroussin: "Before, everything closed at noon and we all ate well at home, each in a different way. Now, nothing closes and we all eat the same junk."

There are actors who are impossible to forget for the simple reason that they are always there. Jean-Pierre Darroussin (Courbevoie, 1953) is one of them. His eternal presence serves as much to elevate the level of any film (whether it's the steadfast Kaurismaki, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, or his inseparable Robert Guédiguian) as it does to prove its origins. If he's in it, it's French. Or it should be. Juliette in Spring, by Blandine Lenoir, is a French film, and the proof is that Darroussin plays a father who is not very expressive but very talkative; very humorous, but sad. "When I first read the script, Chekhov came to mind. I was moved by his ability to give words the right weight, to show feelings rather than drown them in bombastic phrases," he says during the presentation of the film in Madrid. "The first thing I do when I arrive in a city is take the metro," he continues, barely pausing. "Big cities are only comprehensible from the hustle and bustle of people on the subway. The same thing happens to me in Paris. For an actor, the subway is much more than just a means of transportation; it's an acting school." And with that, he shows off his trophies: "The Real Madrid shirt is for my 11-year-old son. He's passionate about football."

In his new role, he's one of three men in a film that's essentially about women. "For too long, women have been constructed and defined by men, and that has to end. I've had a long career now, and I've never seen anything like what's happening right now in cinema and in all aspects of life. And I'm glad. There's a new perspective determined to shatter all the prejudices we took for granted for too long. What we call patriarchy (in France, we're constantly using this word) exists and permeates everything. I've noticed this especially in my new role as a father. I have two grown daughters and a young son. Now I consider myself a new father, free from that patriarchy. I've always been a committed man, a union member, but now, even more so, I believe it's my obligation to transmit values ​​other than competitiveness, power, and all those things... of the patriarchy," he says, while blending his own life with that of his character in the film.

For an actor who has worked so often with the very political Robert Guédiguian (they are barely a day apart --- "He was born on December 3rd and I was born on the 4th of the same year," he confesses -- and have shared 20 films, according to his own account), commitment is an inseparable part of his work. And he boasts about it. He says he comes from a working-class family where trying to be an actor was considered an anomaly or simply an extravagance. And he also says he's always felt a strange fascination with older actors. "The funny thing is that I've become one of those, an older actor, whom I admired so much," he says. Now, from the height of age, he looks around him and marvels: "I find it all very paradoxical. We live in a time when humanity has reached an unprecedented level of development. Never before have we known so much about ourselves and everything around us, and yet everything is noise, everything is confrontation. The world is becoming more and more wonderful, and we are convinced of just the opposite. We insist so much on how catastrophic everything is that, in the end, we have believed it. Look at what is happening in the United States with Trump. It is terrible that the country that invented and spread democracy throughout the world is on the verge of ending it."

And what do you attribute it to?

I'm just an actor. But wherever I look, I see a senseless desire for competitiveness and domination over others. I even see it in my youngest son. Progress is confused with making money. I imagine that desire to constantly stare at a screen has a lot to do with it. Society has become terribly infantilized, and in a very worrying way.

Jean-Pierre Darroussin likes to consider himself "the most pessimistic of optimists and the most optimistic among pessimists." He declares himself this way, and with the spontaneous grace of his rehearsed lines, he laughs. Or rather, he smiles. He is cautious. "Being a father when you're older and nothing worries you allows you to be the father you couldn't be when you were young and worried about everything. Plus, you learn to take things at face value. You look at the world with more tranquility. The serenity you so despised before now seems the most important thing to you... Look at what cities have become. I think of Marseille, for example. Before, all the shops closed at noon and we ate well at home, each one in his own way. Now, nothing closes and we all eat the same garbage. There are those Starbucks everywhere. And I'm particularly struck by Marseille, which was the last French city to have a McDonald's. But that too has fallen," he comments without interruption, but slowly. Jean-Pierre Darroussin is still there.