The announcement was made in red letters on the facade of the Olympia this Monday evening: “Mr. Aznavour. A film by Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade. 2024”. The American magazine Variety reveals this Wednesday evening that it is Tahar Rahim who will play the singer of “La Bohème”. The 41-year-old actor, who will preside over the 48th Cesar ceremony on February 24, will therefore be directed by the duo of directors who signed “Patients” and “School life”. Shot from this summer, the feature film will be co-produced by Éric and Nicolas Altmayer and Jean-Rachid Kallouche (the husband of Katia Aznavour, the artist’s daughter)… for a release in 2024, i.e. for the centenary of the birth by Charles Aznavour.
“The same sensitivity and the same passion for their work”
“Monsieur Aznavour” will focus on the rise of the Franco-Armenian star in the 1950s and his friendship with the greatest artists of the time, including Edith Piaf, with whom he made his first major tour. In Variety, Jean-Rachid Kallouche reveals to have had the green light from Charles Aznavour before his disappearance, in 2018 at the age of 94. ” He had been impressed by Patients and when I told him that I would like to make a film about his life one day, he immediately said yes “says the producer. Who specifies that Grand Corps Malade, who had sung “You are therefore I learn” with Aznavour in 2011, and Mehdi Idir, have been working on the scenario for a year and a half.
According to Kallouche, Tahar Rahim is “the ideal actor” to embody Charles Aznavour because he shares with him “the same sensitivity and the same passion for their work, as well as a mischievous look”. Revealed in 2009 thanks to “A Prophet” from Jacques Audiard, the actor had received the following year a double César, that of the best actor and that of the best male hope. Since then, he has toured for Jean-Jacques Annaud (“Black Gold”), Joachim Lafosse (“To lose reason”), Asghar Farhadi (“The Past”), Rebecca Zlotowski (“Grand Central”), Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache (“Samba”) or Kevin Macdonald (“Designated Guilty”) and has distinguished himself in several series, including “The Eddy” and “The Serpent”. In 2023, we will see him in “Napoleon”, by Ridley Scott, alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby.