Finished laughing for Thomas Ngijol? The actor will amaze you with indomitable, his new achievement

We will not talk here of “Make your own Tchao Pantin“”cream pie that comes out as soon as an actor of comedy ventures in a more serious path, and which owes his name for the film by Claude Berri in which Coluche had taken the opposite of his public image, with a César to the key in 1984. But it does not prevent that close to be a turn in the career of Thomas Ngijol.

Discovered at the Jamel Comedy Club, alongside his friend Fabrice Eboué, he asserted himself as one of the funniest men in France, on stage as on a small and big screen. Whether it is only in front of the camera or puts the director's cap. Accompanied (by Lionel Steketee and, precisely, Fabrice Eboué on Case Départ, then his partner Karole Rocher on Black Snake) or alone, as on Fastlife and this feature film that is released on June 11 in our rooms after a passage by the fortnight of filmmakers from the last Cannes Film Festival.

Inspired by the documentary a crime in Abidjan, whose action he transposes to Cameroon, country of origin of his parents, he stages a man, Commissioner Billon (played by Thomas Ngijol himself), who investigates the murder of a police officer and finds himself pushed in his entrenchments, personal and professional. The announced thriller then takes psychological and social attires, speaking of systemic or family violence, one of the subjects of predilection of the one who, as he confirms, put a lot of him in this amazing fourth realization.

Allociné: When did you discover “a crime in Abidjan”, and what had marked you in it, to the point of wanting to shoot a film?

Thomas Ngijol :: I saw it in the end of the 90s, when it was broadcast on Arte. It had marked me in the sense that the figure of this commissioner strangely reminded me that of my father: at home, there was a photo of him which was gendarme in his past life in Cameroon, who therefore had this function linked to authority. So it connected me a little – somewhere in my unconscious or not – to me, to my life, to my story, but I did not immediately wanted to adapt it, I was far too young and not in this job. It returned two years ago, when I finished my last show, my last one on stage: I had touched something compared to my children, compared to parentage, inheritance, to all that is linked to communication. I had an exploded a kind of glass ceiling and I wanted to continue.

I didn't have a crazy desire for comedy, derision. I wanted to continue to dig this thing which, in the end, made me feel good, via My father's paternal figure and myself as a dad. I started coming back to the doc, because I often said to myself: “Imagine, if dad had been a cop” (laughs) This sentence was a trigger in the sense that I said to myself: “Here, I will try to adapt this documentary and put in intimate.” It would be a way of talking about me, my childhood in quotes, that of my brothers and my sisters, of course, and the paternal figure of my mother at a certain level.

With a little modesty, a little distance, sprinkling all this with a thriller in a universe where we will only be focused on his characters, and in Cameroon. I was sometimes asked if I could have located history elsewhere, but no: if I had placed this story in France, we would have linked that to immigration, to things that are not the subject of the film. And there, I wanted to talk about a relationship with a family, so I wanted to put this man under tension in his professional life, via This investigation which eats his head a little and this family on the verge of implosion.

This need to locate the story in Cameroon, we feel it in front of the film because we see that you also wanted to portray the country of your parents.

Completely ! It is a film where I make a little of what Cameroon gave me. Or in any case of the support that I feel by populations, youth, and also my grandparents, from a spiritual or other point of view. I find that it is as beautiful as their grandson, who was born and grew up in France, does not forget where he comes from, and returns to it in a certainly artistic way, but their payments through his profession, his art. I find it tells a lot of things. For me, in any case, it tells a lot and it tells a lot of things to my children too.

If I had placed this story in France, we would have linked it to immigration, to things that are not the subject of the film

Did you talk about making a film about you, that means that it was obvious as soon as the departure that you were going to play the main role, where several actors who realize often refuse to do it?

Yes because it touched the intimate. If it was another achievement, on a subject with which I have distance, the question may be asked, but there is too much intimate for this to be the case. I knew I was going to realize and that I was going to play. I was inhabited by the subject, by the character. Everything was familiar to me, I was connected to the subject, so it had to happen like that, there were no other alternatives.

Is it a character that you feel close to or, on the contrary, who embodies fears, what would not want to be? Because there are questions about violence, about patriarchy, which echoes with current society.

It's a bit of both, frankly, if I'm honest with you. I am far from him because I succeeded, in quotes, to put words where he shit, to do a kind of analysis. And at the same time, I am concerned: I am a little too because, personally, I am my father's child, I am the child of an education of which I am not completely emancipated. I still have these things that are in me, just as there are ultra interesting things that I keep, that have made the man I am today. And then there are things I am aware of they are dated (laughs)

I would not say that they are no longer topical, but they are not useful and I do not see them so much with humor and irony as as a fight in my everyday life, so that it does not impact it. Because I have a woman and girls, and because I am a citizen in this French society, and that does not limit benevolence towards the female gender or our families. I need to be at peace with that but I also know that I am part of the problem, like many. It is necessary to have the humility to recognize that we were built on a lot of bases that must be deconstructed a little. You have to have this courage, this will, but we are part of the problem. But just saying that, there is a real progress already.

Why not production

You said earlier that you don't want comedy after your last show: how was this moment when you had to approach producers to tell them that you wanted to make a serious film, within an industry that likes to put people in boxes?

(laughs) For me it's 50/50: it is not so much a serious film as in the continuity of what I am. When I said that I did not want to comed, it is just that by leaving my show, what I felt was not something of the comedy, but something emotional that I cannot explain in a very clear way like that, a desire to dig into a place.

But from a professional point of view … I have some distant memories of people to whom I am talking about this project and who tell me: “Yeah, interesting, but hey, you don't want to do something more … (laughs) Here, we want to laugh. And then that's what makes entries!” But that was never what guided me, otherwise I would have made comedies much more popular, I would have been much more in the calculation, even on stage. But I need to be aligned, because before being the actor, the director, I am a man, I am a citizen. I am especially the man I am, with the education I had and I need to be straight: when I am straight and aligned, this is where I feel strong. If I feel that I start making compromises or calculating, I weaken myself.

Oddly, this project seemed to be the most fragile from Case start, which was a first co-realization, quite surprising and cheeky because of its subject [l’esclavage, ndlr]and I go for the first time to the Cannes Film Festival as a director, at the fortnight of filmmakers. There are nice things happening and I had not calculated it, I had not planned it. I just followed my instinct, and my instinct did things well. I think that when you do things with your heart – comedy or not comedy, drama or not drama – whether you do things sincerely, we will always get the best of ourselves. Afterwards, it can do without beautiful surprises.

We have just seen this emotion, when you presented the film at the Cannes Film Festival, and understood how the culmination of a personal and long -standing project was.

Yes, it was not the plan (laughs) It was not the plan but it ended pretty well. It's great because this job may not always be simple, there is a lot of questioning. And when we approach things authentically and harvest the fruits, that people dubbed you – because being dubbed by the fortnight, by the Cannes Film Festival is not nothing. And it happens at an age when I can receive it. I have a life course that makes it really warm: I'm happy, but I'm not going to boast. It feels good and it makes you strong for the future, because I know, through this experience, that it will make me even more demanding for the next adventures that I will approach as a director.

Does each experience as a director make you grow as an actor, and vice versa?

Not necessarily. Afterwards, if I really base myself on this film, let's say that there is a part that I have shown so little that, yes, I suspect that there are lots of people who will rediscover me, who will discover me and will see other things. But I knew that I had certain buried things, which only asked to go out, so much so that even the people who see me on stage, who followed me there or who still follow me, are not very surprised. Because anger was on stage, actually. In other forms, but it has always been there. So, at one point, it was necessary the right platform, and it may be this film.

And I hope there will be others. Other things with a different tone, but without denying comedy, because I love it too. It's just that I was never very conformist. I don't like boxes, I like to be free. I did not do this job by telling myself that I was going to lock it up in a place. So, I have the opportunity to open the field of possibilities and we will continue as long as we can with this philosophy.

It is not so much a serious film as in the continuity of what I am

How much did your comedy experience serve on this project, a police officer and more serious?

Comedy is an emotion, it's life. But the thing is that I hate cabotinage in comedy, and even more in life. This subject was close to me, in the end, because we talk a lot about the lack of communication, the difficulty in communicating, and that through that, we make an introspection. We see his life, we say that we are not talking much, in our homes. That silence, he sometimes says so many things. So, in the end, the rhythm of the comedy with the experience, that is enough for me to understand that we are not going to do too much, that we are going to be fair.

And above all, when you are a society like Cameroon, you evolve in this society, in this film. It's very rich, it's very expressive. So we have everything you need to stay in life and not support comedy too much. Even gravity has a particular color, a particular flavor. So between the filming location and the actors who were really great, everything was good. We had the right ingredients to make a film that looked like what I wanted to express.

Interview by Maximilien Pierrette in Paris on June 3, 2025