“I knew he was not going to last long”: Vincent Cassel opens up like never before on his father’s last months

This is a moving testimony. This Wednesday, February 1, moviegoers will be able to see the new opus ofAsterix and Obelix. In this new feature film, directed by Guillaume Canet, Vincent Cassel plays the role of Julius Caesar. Invited in Seven to Eight on Sunday January 29, 2023, the actor returned to his career but also spoke about a very difficult subject: the death of his father. Indeed, Jean-Pierre Cassel died in April 2017, at the age of 74. If before, the actor had a hard time talking about the disappearance of his father, this time, he delivered a poignant testimony.

Audrey Crespo-Mara thus wanted to know the reasons which pushed her father to refuse that Vincent Cassel launches into the cinema. “It’s more complex than that. I think you can’t lead your kids into that kind of career, because it’s so uncertain. And it’s so frustrating and damaging. Especially if it doesn’t work out. It’s a thing where you are refused for the face you have, for what you release “. Upset, Vincent Cassel continues: “I think sending your children in that kind of direction would be quite criminal. I think those are directions you take when you have a real passion”. The actor also insists that his father kept talking to him about his studies. “Because he saw that it was a choice that was unique to me. And that in fact, I was doing it not to be like him, but I was doing it because it had become a way for me to express myself and express the energy that I had in me”he specified.

Jean-Pierre Cassel was to play in Mesrine

Vincent Cassel also returns to a moving subject: his father was to play the role of a gangster in the film Mesrine. But the disease will prevail first. “In fact it was like that. It was my way of building myself. In fact, we were supposed to do Mesrine, where Mesrine comes to see his father who is dying of cancer. And the story which is terrible, which shows a lot of the humor he had. I knew it wasn’t going to last long. And I said to him: ‘But Dad, are you sure, when you get out of there, do you really want to go and do a guy who dies in a hotel from cancer?’ He replied: ‘That, at least, I’m sure to play it well'”he confided.