‘Emily in Paris’ Casting Director in finding Sylvie, Camille Razat Exit

“We made a monster!” Quisse casting director Juliette Ménager about the “Emily in Paris” Raziernij. Ménager, who describes himself as a gastronomic French chef who is known for controlling the secret sauce where American show runners are part of the romantic comedy series of Darren Star from the start.

She has contributed considerably to the success with her smart casting invitations, such as Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, who plays chic and fierce boss Sylvie Grateau. The 62-year-old Leroy-Beaulieu, a favorite with fans with more than four decades of Credits, played a role that was initially written for a 35 to 40-year-old actress. Or Marcello, Emily’s Italian Beau, who needed a different look than the typical Italian hunk. But the Netflix show, the fifth season of which is currently filming, is just one of the many hits on its long resume.

Over her 30-plus year career, she’s worked on music videos by Daft Punk and Mylene Farmer, award-winning movies such as Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Babel,” Oliver Stone’s “Alexander,” Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” and Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods,” and a string of high-profile series with American and/or British talent, including ‘Marie-Antoinette’, ‘Franklin’, ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘The New Look’ and ‘Etoile’. “Emily in Paris” also reunited Ménager with star two decades after casting for season 6 of “Sex and the City”, which partly shot in Paris.

The well -connected Ménager accompanied Luca Guadagnino to last year’s Marrakech Film Festival, where he provides the jury. When he issued the Artios Award for Excellence in Casting in February, Guadagnino said he was a fan of [hers] Even before she meets her. ”

Known for her Paris flair, sense of humor and creative inspiration, Ménager has become the go-to-casting director for large international projects that are filmed in France, charming show runners and filmmakers while working with actors to close the gap in the occasional language barriers and various acting traditions. It is not a simple achievement in a country like France, where few actors are fluent English and have even less demo reels.

Despite those challenges, Ménager and Raphael Benoliel, the executive producer of the show (“Mission: Impossible – Fallout”), and Anne Siebel, the production designer (“Midnight in Paris”) succeeded in shooting the entire series in Paris in Paris. “They just went to do the outside of Paris, but they fell in love with everything here,” says Ménager, sitting in the colorful living room of her apartment in the hip ninth district of Paris, which is tastefully decorated with hint of African art and design pieces from the 60s.

Ménager often says that she is passionate about culinary metaphors while she speaks passionate about her work, that she “feels like a chef who knows how to put together the very best ingredients of the best places – and in my case they are often the agents with whom I work together, and also agents in other countries.”

Driving that “casting actually means fishing in English”, Ménager, who founded studio casting in Paris in 1994 and co-made the International Casting Directors Association 25 years ago, says that she often goes for actors who are under the radar. “Apart from Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani and perhaps Marion Cotillard, Americans don’t really know French actors, so it’s about finding those who really match the characters,” she says.

There is no small role for Ménager. “It’s like cooking a beautiful meal: if a tomato is not good, it will ruin the whole dish. The same in a movie or series as an actor with one scene ruined it,” she says.

Raised by her father, a war journalist and a mother who was an interior designer, Ménager says that she owes them her curious spirit and skills for compiling and visualizing things.

She says she also knows how to put herself in the shoes of an American, Italian or Spanish filmmaker.

“I know what makes them laugh, what seduces them, and it is very different from one country to another,” she says. In the case of ‘Emily in Paris’, she was able to place herself in the shoes of Ster, which, according to her, is ‘extremely involved in casting with his team of directors and writers’.

Her biggest coup on “Emily in Paris” was to bring in Leroy-Beaulieu, who was far from unknown in France since breaking through in “Three Men and a Cradle” in 1985. More recently she had a small role in “Call My Agent!”

“I read the character description and I could fully imagine that this Sylvie Grateau is working at a desk. I have seen a lot there,” says Ménager. “I immediately imagined that Filippine, whom I had known for centuries and she was the character. She had that star quality, she was very refined, very Paris and with an incredible talent for dark comedy. She has timing.”

“The most important thing is that she made Darren Star laugh from the first glimpse to her self -tape,” Ménager continues. “It was brilliant to choose her for the role, although Sylvie Grateau was supposed to be much younger.”

That kind of surprise is that Ménager enjoys the most. “I like to work with show runners because they make the characters, and it is fascinating to be part of that creative process and I am blessed that Darren has trusted my instincts,” she says.

For the fifth season, Ménager also brought in Michelle Laroque, an old comic actress who will play Sylvie’s friend.

“I saw that Sylvie would meet an old friend of hers in season 5, and it is complicated because actresses of that generation tend to have a certain look and it was hard to find someone available who could work well with Philippine,” she says. “But suddenly I thought of Michelle, who speaks English fluently and is such a good actress – she has that perfect comic timing. Then I had to sell the idea to Darren and the rest of the team who didn’t know her and they immediately loved her, like Filipjes.”

“I was just on the set today and everyone was impressed by her comic talent. She is like a Stradivarius. She gives you 20 versions of Hello,” Ménager adds.

The same applies to Eugenio Franceschini, who plays Marcello in “Emily in Paris” and returns to an extensive role in season 5 as Emily’s love interest.

“First I said,” Oh my God, it’s mission impossible, I have to discover that the Italian man of in its thirty and because we have Lucas Bravo and Lucien Laviscount who are very classic, I didn’t want an Italian actor to look like a Dolce & Gabbana model, “says Ménager.

Because she knew that “it would be a romantic story with Emily”, she had to find someone who had a soft look. That was when Franschini came into the picture and read a chemistry with Collins in the meat in Paris.

“Eugenio has a lot of charm and he is a good actor, which is essential because in a TV program such as ‘Emily in Paris’ everything moves fast, so that you need actors who are top,” she says, adding that “it’s about the personality, about the talent and about happiness. It’s like love.”

She also hired Bravo, which she met years ago as a young model that aims to become an actor. “He was the last person we auditioned for the role of Gabriel,” she said. His career has started in an important way since the outbreak in the show, and he played in a number of films such as “Ticket to Paradise” opposite George Clooney and Julia Roberts. He has been critical of the evolution of his character in ‘Emily in Paris’, and said in interviews that he had ‘slowly become in Guacamole’.

While Bravo will be back in season 5 despite his criticism, Camille Razat, a former model that played Emily’s Rival and Gabriel’s and from French girlfriend for four seasons, announced that she is finished with the show. But Ménager, who is also proud to find her for the part, plays her decision.

“She wanted to take a break. But she might come back,” says Ménager. “As Darren told me, from his experience in long -running shows such as ‘Beverly Hills 90210’, ‘Melrose Place’ or ‘Sex and the City’, the cast becomes a family, and it is just like your family, sometimes you need a little Beather and you come back.”

However, not all French actors want to play in ‘Emily in Paris’. Ménager reveals that some established French actors tend to be ‘pruds’ when it comes to the leading role in the series because ‘they like to hate’.

“When I did the casting the first season, it was easier because it was new, it was fresh and I could promote the fact that it was Van Darren Star, the maker of ‘Sex and the City’. But recently I had to find a French actor to participate in the series and I was rejected everywhere in Paris!” She says, French, “very sexy, found.

Other French actors, such as the quirky Bruno Gouery, are extremely grateful to the show, which led to roles in “The White Lotus” and Johnny Depp’s “Modi”. “Before he played in” Emily in Paris, “he was on [cable channel] Canal Comédie and he was writing sketches, but he didn’t act much, “she says.” Now he is a star and he tells me that he is being hit by women like never before! “

Ménager is at a point in her career, where she almost exclusively works with American directors and show runners, a niche who is a “non-stop job”, she says.

Casting’s company has changed dramatically over the past 10 years, especially with the prevalence of self -tapping that she says that the process makes ‘very democratic’ by allowing more people to audition and therefore brings an ‘artistic abundance’. But although “budgets and recording times are not what they used to be, expectations are still the same,” she says. At the top, her work – considered secondary for a long time – is now recognized with the most prestigious award shows. In addition to the Oscars, which will introduce a best casting category in 2026, the Berlin Film Festival will distribute a silver bear for casting from next year.

Although she hardly works on French productions anymore, she recently worked together with Jean-Francois Richet on the next large French film by Netflix, “Quasimodo”, which will shine Vincent Cassel as the character made by Victor Hugo in his cult 1831-Roman “The Hunkback of Notre-Lame.”

“It is funny, Jean-François wanted to work with me because I have many historical projects such as ‘Versailles,’ ‘Marie-Antoinette’ and ‘Franklin,’ she says.” He needed very strong and well-trained actors because it will be such a big film, with so much preparation, costume and make-up; And we got along very well because I understood what he needed to create a real spectacle – that’s what I always look for in films and series, “she says.