Since launching Vieux magazine in 2024, you have celebrated a positive and uninhibited vision of maturity. One year later, what is your perspective on this publishing venture?
We launched this magazine like tossing a bottle into the sea. No market study, no Excel spreadsheet, just an intuition that we being at the heart of the target audience, as they say were missing a publication that lightly addressed serious topics we are or will be confronted with one day: age, aging, the approach of the end. In fact, we simply took Desproges’ maxim literally: “Let’s live happily while waiting for death!”
Canal+ is dedicating a documentary series to you entitled « la vie rêvée d’un enfant du rock» What made you want to revisit your own journey through this project?
It’s not a project I initiated myself, as you can well imagine. At least… I hope not. But it was an opportunity for a short stroll down a memory lane I rarely visit, being more focused on tomorrow than on the past, as I tend to look toward tomorrow rather than the past. And a chance to revisit the last forty years by weaving together stories of music, television, cinema, and a few other things too. I’m the common thread throughout the story an electric thread, of course…
After more than forty years in television, cinema, and press, what still guides your project choices today?
Curiosity, the desire to venture into territories “where man’s foot has never set,” as Ponson du Terrail wrote. Or to revisit experiences I intend to approach differently, building on my past experiences. Writing, essays, comics, directing, acting… I still have a thousand things to do, a thousand adventures to attempt.
You’ve described your career as “a succession of happy accidents.” In hindsight, would you say this unpredictability has shaped your freedom?
Absolutely. It’s the absence of any career plan that saved me. I work in a field where you have to go with the flow, remain open to opportunities— even those that, at first glance, take you far from your home port. It’s an adventurous and thrilling journey, certainly not a calm river, but extremely stimulating.
At 71, you seem more active than ever. How do you maintain this constant energy and curiosity?
I just turned 72; I prefer even numbers. And I never know how to answer this question. I think I’ve kept something very childlike that allows me to see life including old age, which I approach calmly—as a long series of adventures. Starting a new project, beginning with a blank page, I know nothing more stimulating.
Your sense of humor often caustic but always kind has marked a generation. How do you find the right tone in an era where anything can spark controversy?
I’ve always tended to approach life through comedy, which protects us, however temporarily or illusorily, from tragedy. Everything amuses me; I see ridicule and vanity everywhere, and I relish it. The right tone, yesterday as today, is to laugh with people, not at them.
Between Vieux and your audiovisual projects, there’s a clear intention to give depth and meaning to the subjects. Is this a form of artistic maturity?
I associate depth with intoxication, and I’m wary of the usually false depth of people who pontificate and speak from their experience to teach others how to live. Let’s just say I try not to repeat the same mistakes and not waste time. I’ve measured how precious it is.
You were long associated with Nulle Part Ailleurs, the cult show of the 90s. Looking back, how did this period change you, both personally and professionally?
Completely. It allowed me to open my chakras, venture into areas that seemed untouchable, and work with the best possible team: José Garcia, Philippe Gildas, Laurent Chalumeau. The show was so in tune with its era… the traces it left, the fond memories for viewers or those who discovered it later online, every day I’m grateful I had the chance to be part of it.
If you were to imagine your next adventure a film, a series, a book what would it be?
The film and book are already underway. My biggest dream would be to adapt one of my favorite novels, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae, into a series. It’s a somewhat crazy project, set in 18th-century Scotland, traveling to India, then the seas with pirate stories, and concluding in the forests of North America amid the Indian wars. This book has haunted me forever…
What would you like to wish the readers of LiFE Magazine?
To read Keith Richards’ memoirs, which bear the same title. And to enjoy every moment of this so-called life. Life is beautiful!
