Edouard Baer improvised Otis’ monologue!

ASTERIX MISSION CLEOPATRA. Alain Chabat’s cult comedy with Christian Clavier and Gérard Depardieu is broadcast this Monday, January 30, 2023 on TF1.

TF1

TF1
Monday, January 30 at 9:10 p.m.

9/16 | All public

“You know, I don’t think there’s a good or bad situation…” This monologue by Otis in Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra is cult for a generation of fans of Alain Chabat’s film, some even being able to reproduce it word for word. And yet, know that it did not appear as it is in the scenario! Indeed, Edouard Baer improvised a large part of this monologue on the set of the film.

In January 2002, in the columns of the magazine Première, Alain Chabat and Jamel Debbouze came back to the subject: “Even if it looks like a mess, it’s still a little precise” to make a comedy at this millimeter point. Debbouze, who was then beginning a beautiful conversion to the cinema, explained in fact that he can only “go into a spin unless there is a solid base”. As for the monologue by Edouard Baer, who plays the scribe Otis in Asterix and Obelix Mission Cleopatra, “he really only had two or three lines of text and an ad lib”. The term “ad lib” comes from the Latin ad libitum which means at will. Edouard Baer therefore had a basis to work on and the guarantee that the cameras would continue to roll as long as he had something to say. The monologue was then edited to keep the best take. And the rest, as you know, is history.

Synopsis – During one of their many love quarrels, Caesar defies Cleopatra: if she succeeds in three months in building a sumptuous palace, then the Emperor of Rome will concede that the Egyptian people are indeed the greatest of all peoples. The Queen therefore chooses the architect Numérobis to start this project, but if it fails, it will be thrown to the crocodiles. In order to carry out his mission, Numérobis asks for help from his old Gallic friends, Panoramix, Asterix and Obelix. But they will have to face Amonbofis, an architect jealous that Cleopatra did not choose him…

Released in January 2002, Asterix and Obelix Mission Cleopatra enabled Alain Chabat to bring together an impressive cast around him. If Christian Clavier and Gérard Depardieu, already seen in the previous adaptation of 1999 Asterix and Obelix against Caesar by Claude Zidi, take over the title roles, many friends of Alain Chabat come to fill the ranks of a film which is still today considered one of the best French comedies.