A thriller that skilfully walks us between two eras! In I lied, a miniseries in six 52-minute episodes directed by Frédéric Berthe and broadcast from this Wednesday at 9:05 pm on France 2, Camille Lou plays Audrey Barreyre at two moments in her life. First, when, in 2003, aged 19, she escapes a serial killer; then, sixteen years later, when, at 35, she sets out in the footsteps of her attacker.
“I liked the idea of a double temporality. I absolutely wanted to find an actress who does both. The transformation goes with the lie, the masks, etc. , launches the producer Karine Evrard that 20 minutes met at the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival. The difficulty was to mark these two eras which are not so different visually. “
Camille Lou “hyperempathic”
“Camille Lou was one of the rare actresses who could play Audrey at two periods of her life. When she accepted, it was a big relief, ”says Bénédicte Charles, who created the series with Olivier Pouponneau.
“I started to read the script and I couldn’t stop, we get to the heart of the matter right away with the aggression”, rejoices Camille Lou. “When she plays Audrey at 19, she has this body of a teenage girl who doesn’t know what to do with her arms, who’s a little embarrassed by her legs and so on. When she is 35 years old, she is more calm, more confident, ”greets the producer.
“I am hyperempathic. I put on a costume, a wig and I tell myself that I am a teenager. I remember things that I lived, times when I had no confidence in myself but where I wanted too much to change… And it’s instantaneous, ”says the actress. Going through the ages with her character is not a first for the latter. In I promise you, the French remake of This is Us, broadcast at the beginning of the year on TF1, she plays a woman at several ages of her life.
“Do something about a serial killer who stops killing”
The plot of I Lied therefore begins in 2003. Audrey’s boyfriend encourages the young woman to break into a luxury villa on the Basque coast. A fire interrupts their trip. In the confusion, Audrey embarks a valuable necklace and finds herself alone in the moor. A stranger tries to kill her but Audrey manages to escape.
” At the beginning, [pour construire le personnage], we thought of Elisabeth Ortega, the only survivor of Guy Georges. At the time of the trial, she expressed the guilt that the survivors feel. But Elisabeth Ortega never lied. We added a real feeling of guilt [à la protagoniste de la fiction]. Our heroine has something to feel guilty about because she did not say everything about what happened that night, ”says Bénédicte Charles. “With the lie, the victim becomes guilty”, abounds Camille Lou.
In order to protect her boyfriend, Audrey therefore lies to the investigators, in particular to Commander Joseph Layrac (Thierry Neuvic), convinced that the young survivor is the one who can lead him to Itsas, the serial killer who is rampant in the region. “I approached Audrey as a young girl not mean at all, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, then found herself lying and drowning completely without anyone reaching out to her,” describes Camille. Lou.
“A woman consumed with guilt”
In 2019, Audrey lives in Paris, now a lawyer, married and mother. “At 35, she is consumed with guilt, she is in a very nice story with her husband who helps her a lot thanks to his humor, but she is lying: he has no idea who she is and he goes. find out, ”explains Bénédicte Charles.
She is brought back to her past when she discovers that the corpse of Maialen, 17, has just been found near Biarritz with, around her neck, the valuable necklace that Audrey lost sixteen years earlier. “We wanted to do something about a serial killer who stops killing. Normally, a serial killer ceases when he is arrested or when he dies. There, we do not know why ”, continues the screenwriter.
I lied mixes the codes of the thriller, the slasher, but also those of the psychological thriller. “His lie had dire consequences. Audrey will finally be able to rebuild herself by going back there. It’s a story of redemption, ”concludes Camille Lou.