"I refused to read in public": Guillaume de Tonquédec opens up about his academic past

The relationship with words can sometimes seem like a long way of the cross before becoming a love story. For Guillaume de Tonquédec, winner of the César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2013 for his performance as Claude Gatignol in Le Prénom , this transformation took years. Invited for the second consecutive year to the Festival des mots, he presented, on Friday, July 25 in Carros, a reading of Le Barman du Ritz , by Philippe Collin.

But behind this public performance lies an astonishing personal journey. That of a dyslexic child for whom school was a nightmare, before the theater offered him redemption. A relationship with words that he discusses in the book Les Portes de mon imaginaire , published in 2018 by Éditions de l'Observatoire, written jointly with journalist Caroline Glorion. Today, the man who refused any public reading has become a fervent defender, seeing in this exercise a form of contemporary magic.

What is your relationship with words? And how has it evolved?

I have very bad memories of learning words, grammar and conjugation. It was a real difficulty for me because as a child, I was very shy, sitting at the back of the class, I had trouble seeing what was written on the board and I was also most likely dyslexic. In the eighth grade, I discovered theater and I said to myself: "If I want to do this job, I have to know the words." In the end, it was the imagination of the authors that saved me. It was being able to hear stories that gave me a taste for words. I particularly remember reading Peter and the Wolf , by Gérard Philipe. I had the book, but I had a lot of trouble reading it. There, I had someone who read it for me, a bit like a ski lift.

You talk about this delicate relationship with words in the book Les Portes de mon imaginaire ...

At first, I had a reflex of rejection: I wanted to forget these painful memories. Thinking about it, I told myself that this is a book that could have helped the child I was, or others who are going through the same thing. I tell how I was made to believe that if I wasn't good at school, I wouldn't have access to culture. What absurdity!

Why did you wait so long to do public readings?

I refused to do it for years because I was afraid of stumbling or not being up to it. I always declined, claiming I wasn't free, and one day I thought maybe I should give it a go. When I was over fifty, I did it for the first time, and since then, I can't do without it. There's something magical about reading aloud. It's just the text and the voice, there's no staging, just a lectern, maybe a light, and a microphone. Where there's apparently nothing, in fact, there's everything.

Is there a book that changed your life?

The Desert of the Tartars , by Dino Buzzati. As a teenager, I doubted my vocation as an actor, and this book shook me like a slap in the face. It's the story of a lieutenant who spends his whole life waiting for a battle he'll never fight, and ends up dying without having experienced it. I told myself that either I would become an actor, or I would end up like him, regretting it. Buzzati tapped me on the shoulder through the pages. That's the magic of books, they speak to you when you need them.

Today, what role do you think culture plays?

A vital role. In an era of divisions and shortcuts, culture is what still brings us together. Obviously, I live off culture, so I have every interest in defending it, but I also speak as a human being. The disappearance of culture, which is being planned almost everywhere, terrifies me. It's the end of reflection, thought, contradiction, and debate. And in my opinion, it's harmful to democracy.

Next meeting at the Festival of Words, this Thursday, July 31, at 9 p.m., with Guillaume Gallienne in Cap-d'Ail. Parc de Château des Terrasses. soirees-estivales.departement06.fr /le-festival-des-mots.