Depardieu’s voice disappears from Hazanavicius’ next film, the actor says he no longer accepts “any project” – Libération

2023-10-02 15:59:16

Sexual violence fileThe voice of Gérard Depardieu, planned in the next film by Michel Hazanavicius, will ultimately not appear in the project. The decision was said to have been taken “by mutual agreement”.

Actor Gérard Depardieu “does not accept any project”, starting with lending his voice to one of the characters in the next animated film by Michel Hazanavicius. Accused of rape and sexual assault, “he has decided not to accept any project for the moment in the current context,” declared the actor’s agent, Bertrand de Labbey. Initially and “by mutual agreement, Gérard Depardieu and Michel Hazanavicius decided to renounce [la] participation [de Gérard Depardieu] pour [le] next film” of the director, he added, confirming information from the daily the Parisian.

The actor was to lend his voice to The Most Precious of Goods, which tells the story of a couple of Polish lumberjacks who, during the Second World War, rescue a baby who fell from a train taking deportees to the concentration camp. Auschwitz. “Only tests had been carried out,” specifies Bertrand de Labbey.

The actor has been indicted since 2020 for “rape” and “sexual assault” on actress Charlotte Arnould, who denounced two rapes at the star’s Parisian home at the end of August 2018. In the summer of 2020, she obtained that the investigation, first closed by the Paris prosecutor’s office in June 2019, be entrusted to an investigating judge.

In April, Mediapart revealed the testimonies of 13 women accusing Gérard Depardieu of sexual violence. The Paris prosecutor’s office indicated at the time of these revelations that it had “not received any new complaints to date.” The prosecution also specified that the investigation opened in July 2020 following the actress’ complaint was continuing.

In an open letter published on Sunday October 1, the actor refuted the accusations against him, denouncing a “lynching” orchestrated by the “media court” and ensuring that he was “neither a rapist nor a predator”. “Never, ever have I abused a woman,” he wrote.