After 1981, 1987 and 1991, Ricardo Trogi is these days filming the continuation of his adventures in 1995, a film which promises to be the most “funny” and “zany” of the lot. We were on set this week.
“Dear viewers, it is with great sadness that we must announce the disqualification of competitor Ricardo Trogi! » His crime? An “unequivocal” appreciation of the rock group Aerosmith, “easy music which is not part of the values or philosophy of the Course…”
We are on a television set of the show La course, and the one who says these words is none other than Pierre Therrien, played here by Mickaël Gouin.
“The film recounts my time on this show [La course destination monde, 1994-1995 edition],” comments the director, wearing his emblematic cap, on the sidelines of filming, in the former offices of the National Film Board (ONF ), on the side of Highway 40. At the time, “I was a little anxious,” he laughs, “because of a very strong medicine against malaria! “.
After recounting his childhood (1981), his adolescence (1987), then his adventures during his first backpacking trip to Europe (1991), Ricardo Trogi continues his biographical fresco with his beginnings, laborious to say the least, in the wonderful world of the realization.
Note that if the Radio-Canada show which propelled the director’s career was slightly renamed for rights reasons, we kept the real names of all the other characters, well known to viewers (Pierre Therrien, but also judges Michel Coulombe, Louise Racicot and Manon Barbeau).
Nice detail: former cameramen from the show were recruited as extras. We will undoubtedly see them handling their imposing period cameras, here and there during the film.
“I was propelled to the end of the world,” says the director, who is going to shoot in Morocco next week (instead of Egypt, which was already too complicated in 1995), before going to Nepal, for his ultimate destination.
For what ? Because technology, or rather the absence of technology, is giving him a hard time. “We’re a year before the internet! “, he argues. Before the widespread use of cell phones (everyone here is “hooked” to their phone), without GPS, let alone Facebook. “If you don’t call, you won’t hear back!” », says the man who still remembers having to call his mother from abroad to hear her reports with one ear (his mother bringing the telephone – corded, of course – closer to a television!). That gives you an idea of the portrait.
And the mandate was not the least: imagine arriving overnight in a foreign country, without speaking the local language, with a $500 “survival budget” per week. Imagine also having to find original topics on site!
“It’s the little details that make it fun, the spectators will really be told what it was like for a “runner” to make a four-minute film. » Basically, we will have understood: “It was complicated! »
And with 1995, “that’s when I had the funniest things to talk about.”
A statement that Jean-Carl Boucher does not deny, who will play Ricardo Trogi again and to his greatest joy, and for the fourth time.
“I think so,” he agrees. Definitely. It’s very goofy, and right from the start! »
It must be said that his character, in his mid-twenties, is still just as goofy. “Yes, he often gets his foot in trouble. He is well-meaning, but clumsy! »
The actor takes the opportunity to highlight “the real happiness” he has in working with Ricardo Trogi again. “I’m glad I knew someone as good as him at such a young age! […] It really clicked. […] And we have a bit of the same humor! »
Among other blunders and technological glitches, his character will lose his camera in Egypt, he confides. “And it’s fun for the audience to see someone who gets into so much trouble. He has a clear mission, but he is incapable of fulfilling it. The humor is there a lot: each scene has its own problem! »
If you are wondering what the film’s musical selection will be, know that the director has made a list of “110 songs”, but his choices have not yet been finalized. “It’ll be a surprise, and it’s more fun that way! », he concludes. To be continued, then, in theaters next summer.
