Prime recreates the 2Be3 madness in the series 2Be3 Cultbroadcast this October 24. Those between 40 and 50 years old will rediscover, perhaps with nostalgia, these manufactured but effective tubes: the inevitable leave a daybut also Given, Always there for you – emissions punch machine AND fan of. And you will discover behind the scenes of this lightning success.
Their names were Filip Nikolic, Adel Kachermi and Frank Delay, these three guys, members of 2Be3 in the mid-90s, revolutionized the music industry. Although they could not sing or dance, they became the first boy band The French filled concert halls, causing riots in their wake, and sold 5 million records.
It’s your story that the new season of Cultson Prime, after showing last year the birth of reality shows in France, with Cult: Loft Story. Prime continues its anthology series and reveals in 6 52-minute episodes the fate of these childhood friends from Longjumeau, who went from anonymity to fame in a few months.
The first feat is to have found young actors who look like the three singers. A long and laborious step.
“Super complex”
“It’s difficult to find three guys who have a pretty good muscle base, who at least know how to play and look like the characters in the boy band, and among whom there is a kind of cohesion,” says Namory Bakayoko, who plays Adel Karchermi.
“It was super complex,” confirms Yaël Langmann, writer and director of the series. “The casting director saw between 4,000 and 5,000 profiles. We had to find a needle in a haystack.” Marin Judas-Bouissou (Frank), with whom the director had worked on the series tender meatwas chosen first. The only thing left to do was find Filip and Adel and, above all, create an alchemy that would make the story believable.
Because if 2Be3 were neither musicians nor singers, they were actually friends. “They are the only ones (boy bandeditor’s note) who were not chosen, were three true childhood friends, who came from Longjumeau”.
When we saw the size of Namory (Bakayoko), the size of Antoine (Simony), we immediately realized that there was something that worked, remembers Yaël Langmann. And the most incredible moment, when we put the three of them in the same room, they measured each other a little and very quickly they began to move as one body and carry themselves like children, it was very beautiful.”
“They died together”
“Today they are very good friends, the boys, it is my great pride,” says Yaël Langmann, praising the “exceptional solidarity” they showed in the face of the difficulties of such a demanding shoot.
“They have this intelligence to help each other, they have exceptional solidarity because they suffered this physical pain together, what they experienced was physically exhausting.”
After the casting process there was intensive preparation and grueling filming. With “a particular shooting rhythm, 12-hour days” at the end of which it was still necessary to “work to maintain this physique” and “work on the scenes for the next day,” says Namory Bakayoko.
“We don’t master dancing, we don’t master singing,” slips Antoine Simony, who is also a rapper, under the stage name Simony, and who performed especially during the Vieilles Charrues festival.
“Learning a new discipline, which is dance, is exhausting,” emphasizes Yaël Langmann, “working your body is exhausting, not eating what you want is exhausting.”
“In terms of body, we have worked a lot to be harmonious,” underlines Marin Judas-Bouissou. It is also this physical preparation that brought them closer to their characters. “The training allowed us to naturally find ourselves in the place of these three boys at the moment in which they experienced what they experienced,” analyzes the young actor.
For the three young people it was not about imitating but rather embodying characters. Especially since Marin Judas-Bouissou plays alongside Frank Delay, who plays her viet vo dao coach in the series. “Frank and Adel told us (their experience) and gave us an idea, a basis to interpret all these things: to leave Longjumeau and become very, very famous,” the actor emphasizes.
“A great seducer”
If she worked with Frank Delay and Adel Kachermi, the director also spoke with people from 2Be3’s professional environment, childhood friends. “Everything was absolutely coherent,” says Yaël Langmann, referring to their different testimonies. All these meetings allowed him to paint a fairly faithful portrait of the three young people.
“It’s crazy because it’s not totally our life, but it totally could have been our life,” Frank and Adel told him.
Because, of course, Yaël Langmann had to deviate from reality, in particular by playing with chronology. “I shook things up a bit, I brought forward a duel, I brought forward a Bercy, I accelerated the production of albums, etc., so that there was coherence.”
And then he also met Valérie Bourdin, who was Filip Nikolic’s partner and who plays Cécile Cassel in the series. “She mentioned a lot about Filip’s intelligence, his anti-determinism, his social intelligence; he was an immense seducer, he was capable of seducing anything to achieve his ends.”
Source: BFM TV
