Vincent Cassel: ‘There are things that are good for your career and others that you like: always do the latter’

There is a generation of filmviewers that cannot separate Vincent Cassel, 59, from the 1995 movie La Haine (Hate), where he dominated the screen. Although more than three decades have passed, Mathieu Kassovitz’s film was already exposing the seams of modern France. A Jewish kid from the Parisian suburbs, inflamed by frustration, resentment, the poison of social exclusion, a constant sense of injustice and a desire for revenge after a friend gets killed by the police. Vince, but also Saïd and Hubert, his closest friends, formed a trio that would be unlikely today in the banlieues of the Paris periphery. An Arab, a Black man and a Jew united by that prescient smell of fracture, exclusion and identity conflicts that began to feed the hatred and stoke the fire of the far right.

It also marked the definitive breakthrough of a colossal actor. Impulsive, singular, aggressive, capable of improvising 20-minute scenes without blinking. A gaunt, unpredictable and magnetic Robert De Niro figure, the standard-bearer of an overflowing personality that straddled two eras and ended up forming one of the most fascinating couples in European cinema with the Italian actress Monica Bellucci, his wife from 1999 to 2013, mother of two of his daughters and his partner in a dozen feature films. Some are part of the best of French independent cinema, like Dobermann (1997) or Gaspar Noé’s disturbing Irréversible (2002), films that opened many creative doors.

Cassel, who will turn 60 in November and who on the 27th of that month is premiering Quasimodo on Netflix, grew enormously during that golden period. He broke into Hollywood, appearing in box-office hits like Ocean’s Twelve (2004) and Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) and in the psychological drama Black Swan (2010). He made comedies and family films. Since then, he has rebuilt his personal life. He was divorced, remarried twice, moved to Brazil —from where he travels back and forth— had two more children (the youngest, Caetano, was born a year and a half ago) and, in the middle of filming the fourth season of The White Lotus, scheduled for release in 2027, he now feels like a less impulsive, more composed actor and man. “I’m at peace. I’ve learned to distance myself from certain matters, to be less driven by emotions and more by logic and pragmatism. I assure you, there’s something positive about maturing. Finally!” he exclaims as he lights a cigarette by the window of a Rive Droite Paris photo studio, where he has just completed the shoot for this article.

You are premiering Quasimodo on Netflix. The famous hunchback is a very different role from what you had done until now. It’s very liberating to play a monster. Someone people point at and pin that label on, yet who is generally not the most horrible person around. I had the feeling I understood him. He cannot speak, has always lived in the deepest poverty and remained like a child. It’s curious, because my son Caetano had just been born, and when he smiled at me, toothless, with that innocence… I thought Quasimodo would have to smile like him. The kid is far from monstrous, but he was key to portraying him.

When you think about it, you’ve played characters far more monstrous than Quasimodo. We are all a little monstrous, although some hide it better than others. The notion of monster is constructed by others, and it happens more and more often. People end up isolated, cast aside for something they did or said. Sometimes with good reason, other times without cause. At the root of popular juries there is something like medieval revenge; people want blood. And today that has been unleashed due to a loss of trust in the world, in governments, in the judicial system. Everyone wants justice by their own hand. An emotional narrative is built against someone and you have to destroy them, even though they have no idea what really happened. And for that, of course, you need monsters like Quasimodo.

Are you referring to cancel culture? Yes, everything is organized to separate us from one another. Reasons are sought to hate the neighbor: gender, religion, sexuality differences. I could never speak ill of someone I don’t know.

Have you stopped speaking out on some issues for fear of the reaction? I prefer not to weigh in on certain topics I don’t know well, because I would do so through my emotions and that always leads to spouting nonsense.

In Quasimodo you have once again carried the lead after several supporting roles. There has been a bit of everything. I go from one kind of role to another, but I love supporting parts. People forget that this is also a job that earns you a living and that you combine with your personal affairs. I have no interest in always carrying the burden. There are times when I prefer something short so I’m not away from home too long. Today I prioritize family over work.

It’s been 30 years since La Haine, yet we’re still talking about the same problems: coexistence in the banlieue, racism, the rise of the far right... Does that surprise you? Things have gotten worse. Before, racism was only social. Now there is religious racism, with very concrete issues. More than a fracture, there is an accentuated identity crisis. It existed in my generation, but today there are more young people for whom being French is not a source of pride. I have hope that everything is cyclical. Also with social networks, this permanent voyeurism… I think it will pass. The little ones today, like Caetano, will outgrow it and look at their parents amazed at how they behaved.

What do you mean? We have returned to a form of puritanism. We judge everything through an extremely restrictive moral idea. But humanity is something else. We all have different ways of managing life. Nobody is perfect. Yet an orthodox notion of morality is being imposed. There is a generation that, in that sense, will be worse than the one from the eighties. And it’s interesting to know when all this will explode and there will be an opposition. But it will pass and it will be fine.

The three friends in La Haine were a Jew, a Black man and an Arab, alone against the world. Would that be possible in today’s France? Everything has become harsher. But for a long time that coexistence existed in some working-class neighborhoods. Those problems of religion and ethnicity were much less present. I’m afraid they are now part of a deliberate polarization to control the masses, to pit us against each other because it’s easier to lead us to the slaughterhouse.

Those early films already contained references to the far right. This year, France faces crucial elections in which it could come to power. The scarecrow of the far right has always been there, ever since I was born. It is used at the last minute to steer votes. The problem is that, in the end, the crows realize it and eat the straw inside the puppet. I think there are many French people who, for years, have been forced to vote against something. My dream is that one day we can vote for something. And I don’t think France is the only country where this happens.

Cinema has changed too. Do you think studios today would back films like La Haine, Dobermann or Irréversible? Canal+ financed very risky films and a new generation of directors. But the big production companies never wanted to take risks. We knew that Irréversible, for example, would divide audiences. I felt like I was making the ultimate horror film. They weren’t vampires, but people from the street. Yet, for many years after watching it, there were people who would not take the subway [the movie contains a long rape scene in the underground]. There was something extremely aggressive and violent about it, but with a certain glamour: it was Monica and me, then Cannes… The film represents the nineties very well in its conception, its message and the way it was made. It was a robbery.

Why a robbery? We secured the money before we had the script. The pitch we made was: Gaspar, Monica, Vincent. They accepted and we told them: “Don’t worry, we’ll do something good.”

So they had no idea what you were going to do. There was a lot of improvisation. We had only seven or eight pages. We had to shoot in the chronological order of the story, the opposite of the film. So we began in an apartment, Monica and I sleeping... Gaspar gave us just a few directions, I asked how long the scene lasted and he said: “Whatever you want between two and 20 minutes.” We were shooting on Super 16 and that was the most film we had that day in the archive. The scene lasts 19 minutes, all of it improvised.

It must have helped to film with Monica Bellucci, your wife then. Of course! That level of intimacy wouldn’t have been achieved with anyone else. I loved shooting with her when we were a couple. It was an opportunity to see each other, because we both worked a lot. Also, when you know people well you don’t need to discuss certain things. It’s all direct, without corrections or preliminaries. That’s why great directors always insist on working with the same actors: Scorsese with De Niro and Joe Pesci, Fellini with Mastroianni, Cassavetes with Seymour Cassel and Gena Rowlands… When you’re used to working with someone, everything is better.

You’ve played aggressive men, sexually confident… Yes, I’ve done many of those, but not only. You cannot choose what people will remember about you. But the greatest compliment is to be remembered, even if it made people uncomfortable. Leaving a mark on the unconscious is the most important thing. Often I’ve felt it’s more interesting to upset than to please. Maybe those characters who go against the system resonate more deeply. It’s as if in everyday life we are forced to repress that, because it’s not proper; we are social animals. But seeing someone do it on screen is liberating.

You’ve had four children by three different mothers. Has fatherhood changed you much? Yes, it makes us more vulnerable, but stronger. You are responsible for someone and, if you take that on, life changes radically.

Your father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, was a great actor. How did he handle that responsibility with you? Well, he used to say there were no rules. It’s a tricky phrase, but I interpreted it as meaning we are not here to repeat what others have done. This is a job of self-discovery and experimentation. That never ends. Beyond what your parents tell you, you learn from what you observe in them. I have approached this profession much more aggressively than he did, so I would never end up in the situation he found himself in at the end of his career.

In what way? He grew up with the Nouvelle Vague, great cinema, but there came a time when he had fewer choices and he faded. I saw that and decided it would never happen to me. If the moment comes when I have to do things I don’t like, I will stop. That is why I impose my choices; I have a very precise notion of what I want. My agent works for me, not the other way around. That’s something many actors take 30 years to understand. I want to be at the center of my universe, not compare myself to anyone. Otherwise you always suffer. I am the best at what I am, in my own style. There are things that are good for your career and others that you like: always do the latter. If you try to please others, one day you’ll stop recognizing yourself.

But one can make mistakes. Of course. It’s fine. You’ll get shitty reviews, don’t worry. But I’d rather be wrong with my own ideas than with someone else’s. To be an actor you don’t need a very high IQ; you have to be intuitive and sensitive. But for a career to last, you need a small brain. Otherwise they’ll baffle you.

Would you like your children to be actors? Let them do whatever they want. But if they tell me they want to be lawyers, I’ll ask if they’re sure they want to defend people they don’t care about every morning. Or surgeons —I know many and they have no life. There’s no reason for permanent suffering, only when it’s unavoidable. Everything is very banal: writing articles, taking photos, making magazines, giving interviews, shooting films you enjoy today and that in 15 years no one will remember… What do we have left?

Love? Yes, but you have to know what to dedicate it to. That’s all. The children, the specific moments... What we make to be able to live isn’t that important.

Do you see yourself doing this work until the end of your days? I still love it a lot. When I don’t, I’ll stop.

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