In 2011, the participation of a star in the French hit film “The Untouchables” led Omar Sy to a César award for best actor and a career in Hollywood, with roles in “X-Men: Days of Future Past” and “Jurassic World” “
That success made Sy, who was born near Paris to West African immigrant parents, the kind of star that a powerful producer like Gaumont could ask about her dream roles.
“If I had been British, I would have said James Bond, but as I am French, Lupine said,” Sy said in a recent video call, in French, from his home in Los Angeles. “He’s playful, he’s smart, he steals, he’s surrounded by women. In addition, he is a character who plays characters. For an actor, he is the best. “
A few years after that conversation with Gaumont, a five-episode installment of Sy’s new French series, “Lupine”, premiered on Netflix. Less than a week later, the show, a stylish race set in the heart of Paris, became the second most popular title for the streamer in the United States, the first time a French series debuted in the Top 10, according to Netflix. A second installment was filmed and is scheduled to take place later this year.
Except there is a twist in the story: Arsène Lupine is not a character in the series that bears his name – at least not in the flesh.
But now many American readers must be asking “Wait … Lup-who?”
Created by French writer Maurice Leblanc in 1905, Arsène Lupine is a member of the elite of a gang of charming thugs known as thieves of gentlemen. Like Thomas Crown, Danny Ocean, Simon Templar and (to include a lady) Selina Kyle, Lupine is elegant and efficient. He prefers disguise and persuasion to violence and is so bold that his victims almost thank him for the honor of being robbed.
The hero of many tales and novels, Lupine was seen for the first time as the French response to a certain British detective; Leblanc even boldly wrote unauthorized cross stories starring a Herlock Sholmès. France alone produced several adaptations for TV and films about the thief. An entire generation can still sing the theme song for the series that aired in 1971-74. A 2004 film starring Romain Duris.
Lupine is also a popular character in Japan, where in the 1960s the manga Kazuhiko Kato, known by his pseudonym, Monkey Punch, invented a grandson named Lupine III. This Lupine became the subject of several anime adaptations, including Hayao Miyazaki’s debut feature, “Lupine III: The Castle of Cagliostro”, and the recent 3-D release “Lupine III: The First”.
Sy, 42, does not play Lupine, but an affable Parisian named Assane Diop, the son of a Senegalese immigrant, who idolizes the fictional thief. Sy, who is also credited as an artistic producer, acknowledged that when he first proposed to base a project on Lupine, he was more familiar with the character’s reputation.
“Honestly, it was just something you needed to know, a part of the culture,” he said. “Later, I connected the dots between the books, the TV shows I saw when I was a child and some manga. I was totally addicted to working on ‘Lupine’ ”.
George Kay (“Criminal”), the show’s British creator and showrunner, said in a video chat that he was more familiar with other pop culture creations from the turn of the 20th century, like Sherlock Holmes, Scarlet Pimpernel or AJ Raffles when he was brought in .
“But when I was told that Netflix wanted to do this with Omar Sy, he became attached, the combination of these two things made it very interesting for me,” said Kay. “Because there’s a lot about Lupine that I love: the tricks, the cons.”
French filmmaker Louis Leterrier (“The Transporter”, “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”), who directed the first three episodes of “Lupine”, was one of the first members of the creative team, before the idea was taken to the Netflix . (The series was produced by Gaumont for Netflix.) He said it took a while to define a concept.
“Our first step was to find out where we wanted to go,” said Leterrier in a video call. “Omar really plays Lupine? Is it contemporary or classic? “
Ultimately, “George Kay came up with an idea that we all loved,” he added. “We wanted to see Omar in all his humanity and experience with the myth, instead of calling him Arsène Lupine and doing something that had already been done.”
When we meet Assane de Sy, he is obsessed with avenging his widowed father (Fargass Assandé), who died 25 years earlier. Old Diop, who worked hard to give his son the tools he needed to succeed in French society (starting with the importance of correct spelling), committed suicide in prison after being accused of theft, leaving young Assane an orphan. Assane’s most precious asset became a Lupine book given to him by his father, a gift that would shape his entire life. (The series is subtitled “In the Shadow of Arsène.”)
Like Leblanc’s rapscallion, the adult Assane steals and gets out of traffic thanks to his silver tongue and his talent for changing shape. But don’t expect any hyperrealistic latex mask like “Mission: Impossible” – Assane is decidedly low-tech, in keeping with the series’ trend, deliberately outdated.
“Lupine was a keen observer of society and we wanted Assane to be the same,” said Sy. “He doesn’t need much to disguise himself: he joins the type of person who doesn’t get noticed and disappears.”
When Assane goes out to steal a necklace kept in the Louvre, for example, he alternates between disguising himself as a janitor and posing as a rich art lover at an auction. In the first case, he becomes invisible, a black man among many others; in the second, he explores the fact that he stands out in a sea of white faces, distracting his marks.
“I really liked the ‘gentleman thief’ aspect, but I wanted to subvert it and give it a social angle,” said Leterrier. “I found the idea of a six-foot-tall black man sneaking in high society and in the underworld interesting.”
Kay took the opportunity to escape statements without being heavy. “Having a Franco-African ethnic leadership is very important,” he said. “The character’s targets are the French establishment and the old school, and we are staging these dramas in these classic Parisian settings.
In fact, Assane is very aware of how traditional French society perceives him and often uses these prejudices to deceive his victims. The show also sends an astute message of having the most dedicated fans of Lupine books being of African and North African ancestry, or biracial.
For Sy, “it’s about giving a new face to what it means to be French today,” he said. “The archetype has changed.”
Whether cultural or familiar, the idea of transmission permeates the entire program. For fans of the original stories, Easter eggs abound. On a more intimate level, Assane inherits his father’s Lupine obsession. He then passes on to his own teenage son, Raoul (Etan Simon), whose mother is white, as a way to connect and soften an sometimes difficult relationship.
“It is the first time that I play this type of father, who has a lot of luggage and many questions,” said Sy, who also has five children. “I have always been interested in fatherhood. It is not easy, and you do not know whether you were a good parent or a bad parent until your children grow up. “
For Sy, Leblanc’s old stories serve as a kind of bridge within the series. The book Lupine helps Assane to relate not only to his father, but also to his surroundings, and Assane wants it to have the same impact on Raoul. Culture, like the family, is a means of belonging.
“The idea of inheritance moves me – what do we retain and what do we spend?” he said, “For me, this is the true meaning of life, what makes us human.”