Hugo Bardin plays with codes and syntax. The artist has been playing since mid-September Paloma in the plural, a single and stage where he embodies, in drag, an eclectic gallery of female figures. Among them, a Caesarized actress, a perched bourgeoisie, a museum guide on the verge of a nervous breakdown and even a former queen of France. It’s a success: “We’re adding dates everywhere. We are considering going to larger venues and I am thinking of integrating new characters,” he tells us when we meet him, at the end of September, on the terrace of his HQ in Bastille. 20 minutes took the opportunity to ask him what his victory at “Drag Race France”, a year ago, changed for him. It was also an opportunity to discuss his sources of inspiration, his commitments to the LGBTQ+ community and to find out what he thought of the statements of Muriel Robin, one of his idols, concerning gays in French cinema. …
Rather than doing stand-up, you perform sketches. This is unusual among artists of your generation…
In the public, there are quite a few fans of Muriel Robin, of Valérie Lemercier, of Elie Kakou who tell me that it makes them happy to see that again. As a spectator, I appreciate a certain type of stand-up, like that of Blanche Gardin, people who bring something hyperdark. But the “I tell my life story” side interests me to a certain point and I’m completely incapable of it, I don’t know if it would be very captivating. I have more to say, as an author, with fictional characters.
You yourself make two or three forays into “dark” humor, notably through a line referring to the Bataclan…
I like dark humor. It’s the hardest to do and it’s the most interesting. I am aware that this is not really in French culture. It’s very English, they’re not afraid to go into that territory. The line about the Bataclan came in improv during rehearsal. Everyone on the team told me, “You can’t do that.” I replied: “You will see. “Every night when I do it, there’s an “oooh” and then people laugh. I’m not making fun of the victims, I’m just allowing myself to decompress on something that isn’t easy. At the same time, I feel like I grew up with humor that was hypertrash but disguised as French humor: that is to say, it was about making fun of queers, black people, Arabs, Asians, women and that didn’t shock anyone. I don’t want to go in there. On the other hand, I like making black humor about things that concern almost everyone and are not a question of social class.
How did the female characters you play on stage inspire you?
Fanny Ardant, I’ve been imitating her since I was 9 years old, people wouldn’t have understood that I’m not playing her. Lolashiva, Anne-Cyprine and Nefertiti are the characters who got me started in drag. Before creating Paloma, I had a channel on YouTube, “Gourmandes!” », where I played them while creating cooking recipes. I’m reviving them now because I have high hopes of picking up this series one day. Anne-Cyprine is a declaration of love to Lemercier and to these bourgeois women around whom I grew up, who irritate and fascinate me. Lola is for me the worst character in the show, but she’s also the one I have the most fun with. We all have one around us. Through it, I make fun of things from my generation. Nefertiti is the one I like the most. I love the hoods, for me, they are the real feminists that we ignore a little: they don’t give in, they are respected by the guys, they are very inward and authentic.
You performed your show in Clermont-Ferrand, where you are from. How is your notoriety perceived there?
The irony of the story is that before “Drag Race France”, I had never done drag in Clermont. Paloma didn’t exist when I left… The Town Hall gave me the city’s medal, I admit that it made me laugh. I am godmother of the local branch of SOS homophobia and many young drag queens and drag queers thank me for highlighting the city and its drag scene. There is the House of Morning Star, in particular, which is very committed. It’s quite a queer scene, unconventional, very militant and I’m proud of it. Culturally, Clermont-Ferrand is very ambitious, there is a strong desire to be designated “European Capital of Culture” for 2028, so they are doing a lot of things there… A queer scene was missing, they are in the process of helping it develop is good.
Since your victory at “Drag Race France”, you have been careful not to fade, as Hugo Bardin, behind Paloma. Is it important not to disappear behind the character?
Marianne James told me, after the episode of “Drag Race” in which she participated: “You will see, the character you have created, at one point, you will want to kill him. It took me seven years to get out of Ulrika von Glott.” At the time, I thought, “Oh my, why is she telling me that? » I understood afterwards. Do I want to be Paloma at 75? I don’t know. Not even at 50. I’m starting to prepare the ground. I have projects in Paloma and others in Hugo, as a director, screenwriter and actor. However, I don’t feel any urgency to separate from Paloma. With her, I allow myself things that I couldn’t do – and that I wouldn’t necessarily want to do – as Hugo. There, I’m recording an album, I’ve just worked on a song with Rebeka Warrior. Even today, I don’t know if I would say that it’s Hugo who sings. Paloma is a bit like my Lady Gaga, my David Bowie, my Mylène Farmer: I can lend her neuroses, aesthetic lines that are not necessarily mine.
Does your notoriety as a drag queen dissuade casting directors from considering you for non-drag characters?
For the moment, the agent who is in charge of my acting career sends me a lot of things in drag, which I often refuse, because they are not roles, on the script, it just says “the drag queen”. I already did that. Now I want my characters to have a name and to be described, that’s the minimum. I like playing Hugo, but I don’t get the same pleasure as when I’m Paloma. On the other hand, I like to produce in Hugo. I’m writing a comedy series and I’m working on a feature-length drama. I’m very lucky, I was afraid that “Drag Race” would lock me into a very TV format, but I manage to do the splits. I get asked to do hyperintellectual things at France Culture as well as hypercomic things for the general public.
When Muriel Robin says that a gay actor or a lesbian actress cannot have a great career in cinema in France, what do you think?
She has a way of saying things that sounds a bit like anger, because she’s always been angry, but she’s right. It’s very difficult today to say things without being stamped afterwards. In doing “Drag Race,” I decided to say, “I’m a gay boy.” I could very well have been an artist whose private life is not talked about. In each interview, people talk to me about it, they talk about being gay, an activist character… I can no longer, and I don’t want to, go back. My generation is aware and no longer afraid, I think. But there is a generation that had to shut up. Especially women. Very few have broken the taboo. There was Catherine Lara and, from the moment she said it, her career changed. Even among TV presenters, very well-known people, they don’t say anything, otherwise it becomes the subject. I also saw it with projects that were offered to me. Channels said “No, it’s too early, we’re not ready”. Others took the risk and it worked.
Being openly gay has little to do with privacy. Saying “I’m gay” doesn’t inform, for example, what you do or don’t do in your bedroom…
Yes, but it still changes a lot of things. Before you start Daily, [il est apparu dans l’émission de TMC régulièrement de mars à juin 2023]I redid all the sketches of De Caunes and Garcia [pour « Nulle Part Ailleurs »]Alex Lutz and Bruno Sanchez [« Catherine et Liliane »]…that is to say, male comedians who played female characters. In people’s minds, it’s cult, everyone loves it. There was some brilliant stuff and some downright unfunny stuff. But they were two heterosexual guys wearing wigs, so it was okay, it was still acceptable. For me, if I put on a wig and go on TV to play a female character, for some, it’s “perverse”. When I wrote my columns in Daily, I received hundreds of insulting messages and death threats. Suddenly, people talk to me about “LGBT lobby”, “propaganda”, as if I wanted to make people queer or trans. We don’t accept the idea that I’m just an artist who plays female characters. There was a point where I slowed down on below-the-belt jokes.
That’s to say ?
On one of my first columns in Daily, my character Lolashiva flirted, for fun, with a guest. The reactions on the networks were “these drag queens, how vulgar they are!” They feel obliged to sexualize everything. » When José Garcia was doing Sandrine Tropforte [une parodie de Cindy Crawford], with her big breasts, it was a thousand times more vulgar than what I was doing and no one was offended. It’s crazy that I’m being demonized just because I’m queer.
Since your victory at “Drag Race France” you have used your media visibility to send messages, against homophobia or transphobia, for example. Is this a role that you took on willingly, or a little in spite of yourself?
When I won, I realized that the phenomenon went well beyond the LGBTQ+ community. At that point, I couldn’t just be a queer star, I had to be a spokesperson. No one asked me but I remember that while shooting the finale, Soa de Muse told me: “Be careful, we are going to have a responsibility. » When, on the evening of the official coronation, Daphné [Bürki] put the crown on me and had a microphone and camera put in front of my head, I thought, “I’m a queer person. Of course, I’m a white guy, privileged, one of the lucky people, but, in fact, it’s going to be easier for me. I’m going to be invited on TV, people will more easily give me a microphone, I have to speak for everyone. » There is such an invisibility of queer speeches on television… The fact of knowing how to speak, of having an education, of being reassuring for a certain audience allows me to be heard more easily. It was never a chore or something I had to endure, but it was a pressure. There are times when I wish I was just Paloma artist.
Paloma in the plural is on view at La Scala (Paris 10th) from October 10 to 14. The artist will also perform, among others, in Strasbourg on November 9, in Marseille on November 14, etc.