Everything is here. The jury, the emblematic winners, the music of the credits and even… Virginie Efira in an unpublished sequence of the audition of Julien Dore replayed to blow out the twentieth candle of M6’s emblematic telecrochet. There New star is not reborn from its ashes but the channel which saw her born in France offers her a birthday with great pomp. The event is celebrated by two prime time shows – the first is broadcast this Wednesday at 9:10 p.m. – hosted by Karine Le Marchand, the only graft in this nostalgic setting, where archive magnetos and unpublished performances follow one another.
Following in the footsteps of TF1 after its revival of star Academy the channel pays tribute to its telecrochet where Amel Bent, Christophe Willem, Julien Doré and Camélia Jordana appeared for the first time. Candidates who first surprised for their originality or their universe before catching the eye or rather the ear of the general public.
“The trademark of New star was to select people who didn’t look like the job, who weren’t the stereotypes that the record companies were expecting”, advances to 20 minutes Christophe Willem, winner of season 4. To achieve this, the production set up a jury from the second edition of the program which will become its emblem. Season after season, Marianne James, Manu Katché, André Manoukian and Dove Attia chain live escapades and choices against the current. “They said: ‘We get paid to select people, after that it’s not our job that the guy doesn’t look like anything. If we select him it’s because we think he has talent, after that. It’s up to the show to highlight it”, says Christophe Willem.
Cultivate the difference
Like him, the candidates who suffered the plasters of the program in France quickly found a setting where to flourish. If the original format has already existed for two years in Great Britain under the name pop idolwhen M6 adapts the show by renaming it A the search for the new starno one knows what to expect.
“We were not presented with the program. (…) I did it in provincial mode, which says that you have to go through castings to make yourself known,” recalls Thierry Amiel, finalist for the first season. After several unsuccessful attempts to cast pop starshis interpretation of I’m sick allows the 19-year-old Marseillais to rise among the favorites of the program. “I thought it would be different from pop stars, that there would be real artists. I didn’t know where I was going but I was quickly reassured. »
After coming “close” to integrating the Star Academy, Steeve Estatof retracts during the last tests, oppressed by the impression that we are trying to curb his style. A year later, he attended the coronation of Jonatan Cerrada against Thierry Amiel. “I immediately found this show cooler, less cheesy than the others. We felt that it was more open and it was confirmed, ”comments the one who will win at the end of the second edition of the telecrochet after wild performances on titles from Nirvana or AC / DC.
“I was asked whose mother I was”
The first two seasons brand the following ones and create the identity New star. “In other shows they were looking for specific profiles. New star it was: “We will see what we have and we will do with it”, comments Florian Lesca. A season 4 contestant, he became the contestants’ nanny three seasons later.
” When I do New star, I am an orphan, I am 27 years old, I own my apartment and I am an intermittent performer, ”rewinds Miss Dominique. Big and racialized, the young woman thinks that she will never have her place in front of a television set. “Black women were most often confined to the role of chorister. Without much hope, she tried her luck at the Rennes casting. “I didn’t have my hair done, I had old rotten jeans, sandals, it was nonsense, she smiles again. I looked so much has-been that people in line were asking me whose mother I was. Unprecedented, his audition and then his career on the show are still an example in terms of representation on French television. If today many black competitors take part in current telecrochets, it is because one day the New star gave Dominique a chance, assures the main interested party. “The black woman, in my time, had to send boxes to be let through. Then Yseult [finaliste lors de la saison 10 diffusée sur D8] brought another evolution… That of being black, round and not necessarily having a big chest. »
The same year, the young Christophe Willem presented himself to the jury with small rectangular glasses and his arched back covered with a green and blue striped sweater which earned him the nickname “Turtle”. “I was not supposed to participate but my sister forced me to register,” he says. To avoid queuing alone, he forces his sister and brother-in-law to register with him. He was finally selected and won against Dominique on June 8, 2006. “Even today, people stop me in the street to tell me that they remember exactly what they were doing the day I won, he wondered. There had definitely been a cover of the Parisian with Dominique and me with a title like: “Le duel ce soir”. It was crazy ! »
A freedom that has left its mark
After the surprise of the castings, the show was also the scene of unforgettable TV moments. On March 18, 2004, the quartet was in shock. “It’s lamentable”, launch Dove Attia and Marianne James while the young Charles was preferred by the public to the detriment of Simongad. The only female juror then continues: “You have shit in your ears! The sequence still illustrates nearly twenty years later the cash side of the show.
The ex-candidates are proud to have participated in this program. Everyone agrees that the music was central, even leaving the candidates free to express their creativity. “We only rehearsed on set when we were filming, on the very day of the prime,” says Christophe Willem. The production discovered at the same time as the candidates the arrangement of the musicians, who now do the job in The Voice on TF1. The interpretations of Christophe Willem remain like vestiges of the free field left to the candidates, Julien Doré will set the bar a little higher the following season.
The program will have thirteen seasons hosted by six different personalities but M6 will not be able to resuscitate it in its schedule in 2017 with a final edition presented by Shy’m, which M6 would prefer to forget, we still hear backstage.