Have you ever wondered how Didier Morville became JoeyStarr or how Bruno Lopes became Kool Shen? The answer to this question can be found in Supreme by Audrey Estrougo, an excellent biopic on the rap group NTM, presented at a midnight screening in Cannes and which is released in theaters this Wednesday. To revive their young years, the director Audrey Estrougo had the judicious idea to call on two young almost unknown actors, Théo Christine and Sandor Funtek.
The first was spotted in the Skam series in 2018, the second has a bit more experience since he has been playing since 2009 and was spotted in The Life of Adele by Abdellatif Kéchiche (2013) and in Dheepan by Jacques Audiard (2015), two palmes d’or anyway! But more than their resemblance to their models, they were especially selected because they are former sportsmen, able to reconcile the qualities of play and the qualities of endurance essential to the stage performances of the film. In the end, it took a year of work for Theo and Sandor to come to resemble JoeyStarr and Kool Shen who “initially had nothing to do with them both physically and personality, recalls the filmmaker.
The credibility of the characters
We can imagine that the credibility of the central duo was essential to the success of the film. And it works just as well for concert stages as it does for more intimate sequences. “I brought them into their characters through music,” says Audrey Estrougo. By asking them to imitate them in videos and then pulling out what was not part of the storytelling. And we were able to deliver our version of the characters. ” We also discover their friendships, their rivalries, their trials, their successes, their hopes, as if we found ourselves immersed in the entourage of a group with a provocative name, but which did not call for hatred. And it is a galvanizing impression that emerges at the end of this film which respectfully shares the work of NTM and the power of their most beautiful titles like The world of tomorrow. Beyond the musical tastes of each one, this energetic biopic proves to be fascinating for what it reveals about a group which imposed rap in France and opened the door to many other artists.