He is this frenchy whose name is on everyone’s lips. Whilea prophet brought him international recognition at the age of 28 in 2009, Tahar Rahim finally seems ready to impress Hollywood. Nominated for the 2021 Golden Globes and Baftas for his performance in Found Guilty where he plays a tortured prisoner in Guantanamo, he bursts the screen in The snake, miniseries available this Friday on Netflix. The actor tells 20 minutes how he slipped into the skin of the elusive and venomous French serial killer, who raged in Bangkok in the 1970s.
You wanted to play Charles Sobhraj for a long time…
At 15 or 16, I already dream of being an actor. I see this book on my brother’s bedside table, The trail of the snake by Thomas Thompson. I read it very quickly. He appears to me in images as in a film. I don’t realize all the horror that entails, I see the crook escaping from prison. I don’t identify myself, but I fantasize about playing it. In 2001, William Friedkin and Benicio Del Toro wanted to make a film of it. Small disappointment. The project is not done. I have never been able to forget this crazy, horrible and surprising story and twenty years later, I am offered to play it. I always wanted to explore the evil in a character, to know if I was capable of it.
How do you approach the role of sociopath?
I have so much nothing to do with him that it was very difficult for me to be able to interpret him! I had to build it from the outside: find its look, its physicality, its phrasing, its way of moving. He plays with the life and death of people. He plays at being God. It is heavy. It took me two weeks to really hold it.
How did you know you had it?
When Nadine Gires [une intime de Charles Sobhraj, jouée par Mathilde Warnier] came on set. She is quite direct and makes comments. I kinda avoided it. She told my colleagues about me: “When I saw him, I felt exactly what I had felt when I found out who he really was. This gave me confidence in myself. And then I found a connection in Episode 3 when he said, “If I had to wait for the world to come to me, I’d still be waiting. Everything I ever wanted, I had to take. That, I experienced as an actor. I come from Belfort, a remote little town in the provinces with no connection to the cinema, I also had to pick up and take what I wanted.
Your game is very contained but the threat hangs over each of your appearances…
I really needed to concentrate. It was not easy to isolate yourself on the set. My playing partners came to talk to me and it disturbed me. I remembered a remark from Mark Strong when he played my father, a king, in Black Gold “It’s not you who plays the king, it’s the court. I decided never to speak to them, or answer them on set, for about two weeks. It was not pleasant. It was awkward, but it created a kind of strange atmosphere. Every time I arrived on set, they lowered their voices, looked at me without looking at me. It ended up existing in the image.
Have you considered meeting Charles Sobhraj?
As I always do when I interpret someone who is alive. I wanted to see how he would try to manipulate me. I gave up, out of ethics. First, out of respect for the victims and their families, and because all conversations with Charles Sobhraj can be sold. I wasn’t going to pay a criminal!
How do you see Charles Sobhraj looking back?
No one is born bad. I had to study to understand. We all come from the same place, how do we become that? There are all the characteristics, the triad of MacDonald: enuresis, pyromania and aggravated violence even the murder on animals. And very often there is the mistreatment of the mothers and the abandonment of the father. This does not excuse anything, I want to make it very clear. I have empathy for the child, none for the criminal. Administratively, it did not exist. This explains his killing process too. He makes his victims disappear and takes their identity. It’s fascinating to discover all this.
It seems that you have kept some costumes…
I took three quarters of the wardrobe! (laughs) The 1970s were a very strong, very unique fashion phenomenon. Being in the costumes, the cars, with the music and the glasses of the 1970s, that was the cool part!
Do you feel more free to play in English?
When we play in a foreign language, we have the impression of becoming a virgin again. French words, we have twisted them and explored them in all directions, even more when you are an actor. There, everything is new. We rediscover the game. When we speak a foreign language that has another frequency, the muscles, the face, the body move differently… And the rest follows. Emotions take different paths.
After “The Eagle” in 2011, you weren’t ready to embark on an international career, are you now ready to embrace it?
I feel more consolidated, more in tune with myself. It’s no longer a problem. I was afraid of having a big head. I hadn’t imagined another failing: overprotecting myself. I didn’t take full advantage of what was happening to me. I’ve been doing this job for twelve years, I also have twelve more years of life experience, and I became a dad. It changes a lot of things. Now, I relativize. It’s a passion. It remains a job. This should not be a source of anxiety that prevents me from being in the present moment.
So, serene a few days before the Baftas ceremony?
Really, we’ll see what happens. It’s already so cool to be recognized like that. This mainly highlights Found Guiltythis film which tells a very strong injustice on a man who still lives a very strong injustice.
With each role, you push your limits and you are compared to Robert de Niro…
It makes me blush. The day I manage to have even a third of his career, I will be the happiest man in the world. All the actors of the 1970s are very strong role models for me. They gave impetus to still-unchanged game codes. Their methods and their codes correspond to me. I was rocked by that. It’s the cinema that inspired me the most.
What roles do you dream of?
I dream of continuing to be surprised, to go to unexplored terrain, to put myself in danger, to risk things and to explore the mythologies of American, Asian and European cinema.
Your projects ?
I’m shooting Serge Bozon’s next film, a musical of a different genre from Hollywood musicals. A very poetic love story with Virginie Efira, I’m quite enthusiastic about the idea of dancing and singing. I accepted two films in the United States, but I’m not allowed to talk about them, so I’m going to shut up!