Conversations with the Cast of ‘La Maison’

Amira Casar and Lambert Wilson in "La Maison," premiering September 20, 2024 on Apple TV+.

The fascinating new drama series, La Maison, debuts on Apple TV+ tomorrow, and we here at Nerds That Geek had the distinct honor of sitting down with some of the cast of this refreshing new show, to discuss what makes this particular project about the world of fashion so appealing and so enticing for both audiences and actors alike.

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Lambert Wilson (Vincent Ledu) and Amira Casar (Perle Foster)

John Betancourt: I’d love to know what it means to each of you to be part of such a unique project?

Amira Casar: Well, absolutely exciting, because there's an arc, you know, as my friend Lambert was saying, and that the characters who are dealing with pain, loneliness, solitude, are they valid? Are they still valid? How long will they be valid? How long will they last? What's the process of their life? Is this dynamic in this relationship going to work? You know, I feel often that when they take their clothes off, these characters are very lonely, Vincent, certainly lonely, you know, and I think it's actually very isolating, and you freak out if you're a muse, you know, because you know, there's a time limit on that, and you know there is a time limit when you play a muse. So, they are very interesting dynamics within all of these characters who are all suffering. And again, we're dealing with social factors, with bourgeoisie, aristocracy, that he (Vincent) incorporates, and he is a sort of Pygmalion to me. So, I think that was a very fascinating dynamic to work on together.

Lambert Wilson: I will tell you one thing very quickly, one of the last times I went to America, and I was meeting agents, the first questions that they asked you, “are you ready to do a series? And I would say, “Oh, no.” Because series, for me meant being away from home, doing things in America or, you know, in Canada or wherever. And I just, I would say no, and I would see the curtain falling in their eyes, you know, like, “Okay, ouch. We can't work with him.” And now I've discovered the pleasure of being on a series, which is the number of scenes that you do if you have a leading role, you know you have so many possibilities of acting, different things. You meet several directors. You will get the intake from several directors. That's fabulous. You live all these months with your character, and you have the promise that maybe there will be another season, so that you can develop the arc of your character. And so, it's super exciting, and I'm such a fool for not having accepted before, because I actually… I thought it was just exciting. Because in a film, a feature film, yes, you might have the lead, you might have a number of scenes to perform, but if you have a lead in a series, you have more scenes to perform. You evolve. And it's like, it's like a leading role, but that it goes on and--

Amira Casar: It’s very much the actor’s medium, don’t you think?

Lambert Wilson: I love it. I don't know why I was so dreading it. I know why… I love this one because it was being filmed in my hometown. Because if you're six months -- now, that's a little question that we could talk about one day. If you're away from your home for six months, and your family and you're, you know, in a foreign town, it can be tricky. The life of actors can sometimes be a little bit more difficult.

Amira Casar: But we got to travel also with this one, and we got to see the best of France, because it's all about quality. It's all about maintaining artisanry. It's all about maintaining a tradition that Pearl and Vic and Van Sant are trying to hang on to, that's been in the family for 150 years. But that is something that's still alive today in France, because they're so brilliant at, you know, artisan, that they've got some of the best craftsmen in France. And they used to be able to know how to make everything without exporting it elsewhere. So, this is something that this has to be homemade, “Made in France,” and to create to keep this family house from splitting, keeping it as an entity, and that is something that they're both fighting for with, with different shifts, you know, but it could happen anywhere. It's all it's also about family feuds, tension, tragedy, loneliness, you know, everyone is shattered inside, really. Basically, they're all highly strung and living intense lives and having to survive.

Antoine Reinartz (Robison Ledu) and Zita Hanrot (Paloma Castel)

John Betancourt: I would love to know what attracted each of you to this project as actors.
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Zita Hanrot: Oh, a lot of things. It was the first time for that I shot for seven months. So, it was new for me. And so, I was really curious about this process, you know, to do something really like long and to be able to explore that, and to explore me as an actress also, and how I'm going to mandate, like, all the things that you can discover during seven months. And it was also, I think I fell in love with Paloma, because, really, she's a complex character. And at the beginning, when we discover her, she's like, she has really, really strong convictions about what is right and what is wrong and what you have to do and what you don't have to do. But she's gonna evolve a lot during the series, and she's gonna discover herself, and maybe she's gonna be like, more mature, you know? And so, it was really interesting, like to explore all the faces of Paloma and the way she maybe she loves power, and she thought she didn't love power, and she was like, “Okay, we all have to be equal and work together.” But at the end, I don't want to spoil this… but you know, she's going to discover the power. And so, it was really, you know, fun to explore that for me. So, there were a lot of things that I wanted to do with this series.
 
Antoine Reinartz: It was, you may not know, in the US, but most of my parts before were very… people, talking a lot and being very powerful with words, very general and functional. And this part was really only about intimacy and about family links. And so, there is also something -- at the beginning I felt a bit far from this part, and it was a challenge. But I really like the fact that he's an heir, and everybody reduces him to this, to the fact that he is an heir and a nepo baby for a lot of people, which is a a phrase I don't really like. It's just like, because it's really difficult for himself, even he's over rich and there is no money problems at all, and even its deeply not normal to be so wealthy, still, he doesn't know how to build himself because he doesn't know what he deserves. He doesn't know that he has the right to fail. He doesn't know how to assert himself. And even within his sexuality, he's gay within a very gay world, which is fashion industry, so it's okay, but still, he’s never with somebody. He doesn't build something. It's really difficult for him to build something, and so he was a loser. Somehow, he's the loser of the series, everybody is betraying him, and I like that, because often I'm the mean guys, and everybody is always like thinking I'm a mean person. So, I was glad to be at the good part.
 
Zita Hanrot: And you have to know that Antoine is the opposite of a mean guy in real life. Is really like the nicest guy I know, so, it's funny.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.