After a season 1, awarded the audience prize at the Séries Mania festival 2019, Mytho returns for a season 2 even more singular, jubilant, hilarious and moving than the previous one, thanks to the biting pen of Anne Berest and the sharp gaze of Fabrice Gobert. In this season 2, already available on Arte. Tv and broadcast from this Thursday on Arte at 8:55 pm, Mathieu Demy puts on the strangely pathetic costume of Patrick, the husband of Elvira (Marina Hands), devastated by the lie of his wife, who, remember, claimed to have cancer in season 1. 20 minutes met at Séries Mania the artist who embodies with a lot of humor, sensitivity and humanity this man at the bottom of the abyss.
How did the reunion go with the whole “Mytho” team?
Mytho is a kind of dream shoot because everyone works in harmony. We get along very well, we have fun together. As and when our work together, nothing deteriorates, I have rarely experienced something so harmonious over time. I had the pleasure to find my comrades. They are incredible actors. Marina Hands is an actress that I admire enormously. The actors who play the children are wonderful. Finding yourself on this project has something reassuring, because we know that it will be something good, a challenging moment of creation.
Season 1 was very well received …
It is quite rare that the echo of the public, professionals and the press is matched. It is the sign that Mytho Tape right, that the series is fine, understandable and readable. It’s a shame when some miss it. There, I had the impression that everyone is in different degrees. You can get carried away by the characters and be entertained or you can dig and find interesting things. Season 1 kicks off with archetypes. Mytho talks about the family. We have to tell the story of the teenager in crisis, the fickle husband, the overwhelmed mother, etc. This is where people hang out, where the show resonates. Over the course of the episodes, the characters become more subtle, more complex. And for those who want to dig, it’s a bottomless pit. Anne Berest and Fabrice Gobert are attentive to details, to the symbolism of the images, as with the jacuzzi or the ducks in season 1. The entire aesthetic fabric of the series is covered with references to the themes that the series addresses.
How would you describe the tone of this season 2?
Mytho is a mix of emotion, comedy, wacky and weird. Not fantastic in the sense of extra-reality. Mytho is about the magic things and signs in life. I think the tone is the same as in season 1. I also like the particular rhythm of the series that Anne Berest and Fabrice Gobert have woven, where we are left hanging by things. Mytho is not an easily identifiable product. It is a complex work.
How was the reunion with your character, Patrick?
I really had fun meeting Patrick, it’s like finding an old friend who is a little stupid, but who makes you laugh!
What state of mind is Patrick at the start of season 2 according to you?
There is an ellipse between the end of season 1 and the beginning of season 2. We find Patrick completely at the bottom of the abyss, but he makes us laugh all the same. He built himself a cabin in his house. Patrick is the one who is most upset by Elvira’s lie in season 1. This lie puts the very foundations of his family in trouble. When he says: “I have the impression that she lied to me from the beginning”, one can imagine very well how he was able to revisit the whole history of his couple through the filter of this lie. For him, everything collapsed. It is therefore quite logical to find it in this state. It was he who took the most money during the ellipse. We therefore find it enormous and at the end of its life.
Is that why he resents Elvira?
The resentment that Patrick may have towards Elvira is hollow love. His resentment is never as strong as the love he once had for her.
In season 1, you paid particular attention to his look, we find a transformed Patrick in season 2 …
When I read that scene where Patrick is shopping in a dressing gown. I immediately thought of opening The Big Lebowski. The Dude is part of my pantheon of favorite fictional characters and I thought that was one of the possible inspirations for the Patrick at the start of season 2. Because once again, he has a crazy trajectory!
He also has a new woman in his life, Sandrine, played by Marie Bouvet, how do you see their relationship?
I really like the character of Sandrine. It is a woman, a priori full of good intentions, who seems to be the perfect candidate to repair this injured Patrick. But, she will turn out to be even crazier than Elvira, more poisonous and manipulative too. Patrick makes an effort and really tries to make it work for them.
Overwhelmed by Elvira’s lies, he says he is “in search of the truth”, I have the impression that he is lying to himself …
It’s quite fair. This again refers to the lie, the founding theme of Mytho. Are all couples based on lies or not? In any case, he’s lying to himself quite obviously.
Brigitte, played Linh-Dan Pham, Patrick’s ex-mistress, goes out with a man who is almost his double…
It’s really funny ! This tells in hollow that Patrick is still worthy of love. I liked the relationship Brigitte and Patrick had in season 1. And Linh-Dan Pham is a great actress. Patrick has all the faults a man can have, it might also be a good shot! The fact that Brigitte is crazy about him, tries, once their break up is over, to find a man like him, that says that Patrick still has qualities. It enriches the character.
There is a role reversal with his children, especially with Sam …
Sam is much more assertive. I love the look too. It is magnificent, complex. He represents a much freer youth today. Patrick, even if he is a monster of selfishness, sometimes came to be a loving father, who managed to talk to his children, to support them. There, he is so badly that he needs to be taken care of. There is a reversal of situations. It’s nice. We keep saying that Mytho’s family is dysfunctional, but there is still a lot of love between the characters.
What I find particularly interesting about your character is that he finds himself at the crossroads of current questions about masculinity …
This is one of the things that I really liked about Patrick right from reading season 1. Patrick never knows if he has to stick his teeth or be nice. Finally, he questions, even if not consciously, his virility, his fatherhood and his masculinity. It is at the heart of these questions: what it is like to be a man today. Since he crumbles in season 2, it just adds a layer to that stuff, because it just lets go.