Succeed in combining an acting career (Champagne at the cinema, Toulouse-Lautrec high school on television or Slight doubt in the theater) and pilot is rather rare…
”Yes, indeed, this is not common. But, at the same time, I couldn't separate the two. My passion and excitement for competing with cars and my acting profession that took over today. There are similarities anyway because it's a show with an audience. We replace the scene with the track or the track with the scene. I am overwhelmed, especially to be able to make a living from it!”
Is the curtain rising, like the lights going out at the starting line, the same type of thrill?
”It’s a thrill. I think I'm always looking for a thrill. This excitement and this adrenaline rush. Yes, of course there are similarities. It is the apprehension of what will happen the next second. When the curtain rises, to feel the audience who is there, who is watching you, who is live. And then the transition from the red light to the green where there is this excitement of wanting to win, of being competitive. There really is a very strong rush of emotion. These are things that I find in both.”
They are also two very physical jobs, ultimately…
“Absolutely ! We don't really realize but in the profession of actor, in the theater, there is a real gesture, a physical involvement, an expenditure of energy, a stress, an emotion. We give a lot of effort to both. We give a lot of ourselves, we get a lot involved. That’s what interests me and excites me above all else.”
And two professions that require a certain lifestyle.
”From now on, it is to alternate white wine, a glass of water, red wine, beer (smile). No, but that’s absolutely part of my pleasure today, the asides. Back then, I didn't drink a drop of wine a week before the race. And today it's different. My passion is wine. I love eating. I no longer really worry about being in optimal physical condition to ride in races. Obviously, I try to maintain myself but I'm less committed to a particular diet than I was at the time. However, I brought back reflexes from before and as a result, I maintained a certain healthy lifestyle. Not as rigorous as before but I still maintain one despite everything.”
And does humor help you in racing?
”Perhaps to defuse situations between two pilots. In fact, it should. But as soon as we are on a track, we are not there to laugh, quote unquote. There is the spirit of competition which returns quite quickly, even if we put things into perspective more than before. In any case, if you have tasted it, it is there all the time. If someone comes to taunt me because they were faster than me… well, with humor, we defuse everything. So even in competition, we laugh.”
“At the beginning, I wasn't a good pilot. As an actor, I wasn't very good either.”
How did you catch the racing bug?
”It came pretty quickly. I saw my brother who was competing in basic categories. And then I saw races on TV. And then the job of pilot impressed me a lot. I thought it was quite wonderful to be a racing driver in the same way you could have been an astronaut or an actor. It came from what it represented. And seeing Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacky Ickx, etc. To see these great pilots, especially since Trintignant was an actor as well. Like Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, I thought it actually looked good. And I said to myself: why not me? And actually, I learned by doing. I had no predisposition for that. I really learned little by little to go faster and faster. At first I wasn't a good driver. As an actor, I wasn't a very good actor either.”
Was driving Esteban Ocon's F1 Alpine (subject of a documentary, “From the track to the stars”, on Canal Plus) a childhood dream?
”I didn't imagine this could be possible. Besides, it is because we think it is impossible that we must make it possible. And yes, it’s a childhood dream. It was magical. It's the culmination of something. This is the queen formula and absolute excellence. It represents so many things symbolically. F1 is a crazy thing and having to have a taste of that. Plus in a modern F1, it's really extraordinary. The idea was really to share and make people understand what I was experiencing from the inside.”
Not bad for a former dunce at school…
”Everything is possible from the moment we tell ourselves that everything is possible. I was dyslexic, I was very bad at school. If I had stuck to those elements, I wouldn't have done much. It's like artists, it's in the constraint that they create. It was a chance for me to overcome these obstacles. To try to go higher and further than others. In any case, to go where I had set a place, a base. So that’s what motivated me. You have to aim to reach for the stars.”
A journey that you will soon put down on paper?
”In fact, a book is being prepared in which I tell a little about all this and will be released at the end of the year. Lots of cool things happening at the moment. I drove last week at the historic French Grand Prix, on the Castellet circuit. And this weekend, it will be at the historic Monaco Grand Prix on the F1 Maserati with which Fangio was world champion. It’s a magical thing.”
Before actually becoming an F1 driver?
”It can be a project (smile) !”
A trio that ends on the podium
”For a driver, Spa-Francorchamps is really great,” confesses Stéphane De Groodt, with his feet on the floor on the most beautiful circuit in the world. “It’s a roller coaster. All the turns bring together a lot of typical circuits from all over the world. I love this type of driving and circuit. He is fantastic.” The actor teamed up (Kronos) with Charlie Dupont and Vanina Ickx this weekend in the Fun Cup. “Charlie is an old friend of many years. I knew he was passionate about cars, about competition. So it's a bit of the first time we've ridden as teammates but I'm very happy with it. He is an actor so not only is he my friend in life but also a work colleague. As for Vanina, we practiced on the track a long time ago. I was excited to play on both maps. The map of the acting profession with Charlie and the map of pilots with Vanina.” Result ? The Belgian crew finished third in the Franco Fun Festival race. A great friendly success!
