El Gouna Film Festival held a discussion panel with winner of the Cesar Award, the French-American actor Christopher Lambert (67), as part of the El Gouna Film Bridge Platform program in the sixth session. Lambert attended and spoke at the beginning about his upbringing, his entry into the world of acting, and many artistic and personal matters.
Lambert said that he was born in New York and spent his childhood in Switzerland, and described his life as being inside a plane because of his constant travel between countries, especially since he loves to learn about different cultures. As for his home, it is the place where his daughter is in New York, where he visits her every 6 weeks to see her and sit with her for a while.
Lambert revealed that he entered acting school since he was young and went to Paris, and when he was 19 years old, he began to go to his dream of participating in films shown on the screen, saying, “The first film I participated in, “Tarzan”, was very successful, as it was taken from a true story, and I was impressed in this film by dealing with animals because they are honest and not deceitful.”
He explained: “Before the film, I went to a famous American doctor who works with monkeys so that I could train to deal with them, and indeed I trained very hard not only to deal with monkeys, but also physical training to build my body because I was very thin, and after I finished the film, one of the monkeys became my friend because of the amount of time I spent there With them”.
Lambert also spoke about the acting experience and the difficulties he faced, saying: I am happy with the works I have presented and belong to because I love acting and it makes me another person. I do not play the character, but I become the character itself.
Regarding the difficulties he faced as a French actor, Christopher Lambert said: Language is the obstacle that any actor faces, and it is something you overcome when you go to a country and mix with the people and the local community, not as a tourist. Before I came to Egypt, I had an Egyptian friend in Los Angeles from whom I learned some things about it.
He continued: I always feel that I still have the passion for discovery and I am curious to know everything. In my works, I had a dialect coach and I used to read the script every day. After several weeks, I was able to master the dialect and they used to talk about me being a French man and playing a Scottish role.
Mentioning his epic roles in action movies, he announced : I trained in sword fighting for 6 months every day because the role is action and I got used to this training in fighting, and currently if I am offered an action role and the script has to be very strong for me to agree, because when an actor is 25 years old he is different from someone who is 60 years old, because here it will depend on whether the audience can believe him or not. He concluded his speech: When you stand on stage you cannot make mistakes, but in the film you can make mistakes because you will repeat the scene, acting is theater and everyone started from the theater and my ex-wife was a famous actress and she used to act on stage and I respected that.
Published December 20, 2023.
