Casting Fernando Rey
Friedkin claimed that he didn't know Fernando Rey was actually Spanish instead of French...
FERNANDO.... REY....
You can't have a much more Spanish name than that, can you???
Si. "So nice to see joo again."
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In other words, they wanted Michel Piccoli instead?
shareWas that whom Friedkin wanted? He says in the commentary that he wanted a particular French actor and was surprised when Rey showed up on the set. He never identified what actor was his original choice.
shareFrancisco Rabal was the one he was seeking. He wasn't available at the time and spoke no English, so Friedkin decided to stick with Fernando Rey.
Curiously, Rabal was also from Spain.
Here's the story: Friedkin asked casting director Robert Weiner who that guy was in BELLE DE JOUR, and Weiner said Fernando Rey, so Friedkin told him to make all the arrangements. He then went to Kennedy Airport to pick up the actor, but Friedkin looked around and didn't see anybody he knew and Fernando Rey walked over and introduced himself to him, Friedkin knew he wasn't in BELLE DE JOUR, either and that Rey spoke Spanish instead of French. After he got Rey checked into his hotel. He went to the payphone in the lobby and unleashed hell on Weiner and producer Philip D'Antoni saying Rey wasn't the right guy, so Friedkin had no choice but to cast Rey in the role of Charnier.
shareAnd just as well.
Paco Rabal is one of the greatest Spanish actors of all time.
But so is Fernando Rey.
And they both worked with Luis Bunuel several times (and both of them in "Viridiana" in 1961, although they didn't share shots)
But in a hundred years I can not imagine Rabal playing the Charnier character in this film. No sir, no way.
While Rey gave us one of the most -if not the- charming gangster performances of all time as the suave, soft-spoken and highly cultured French gourmet-drug dealer- debonair...- you name it- Charnier. He is absolutely top-class. When I fist saw the film I loved his character. When my sister first saw the film, she felt the same way. **** Popeye Doyle and his good American law-abiding boys!... Charnier totally steals the film. And you root for him, come on!
Agreed. But you could also sense from Charnier his suave gentleman thing was just a persona, it was just a disguise. Who would ever suspect this charming older gentleman?
From the scene in the beginning with his young girlfriend, he says he owes her his style, and without her he would still look like an old fisherman. Even if he jokes, there could be a part of truth in it that perhaps he comes from a rougher background, being a criminal and all working himself up to be the top of his game. From hoodlum to the fine restaurants, and so on.
As clever as he is playing cat and mouse in the subway, Charniers performance as a gentleman is just an act and a way of getting ahead in the game. It's just an act, it's just a game. The goal is staying on top. And in that Fernando Rey is just perfect, I can't think of anybody that would've done it better.
The cat-and-mouse game in the subway, the highlight of the film.
The way Charnier acts all the time -indeed like you say-, pretending not to notice he is being tailed by Doyle when in reality he is well aware of it, anyone can see that. He is just playing with Doyle, and you wonder what is he going to do next, how is he going to shake him off. And when the moment comes, it's chapeau. He gets on the carriage, the doors start to shut, he sticks the umbrella out to stop them and walks out like he changed his mind all of a sudden, stands on the platform for a couple of seconds to give Doyle time to get out as well, and in the last second as the doors start to shut again he suddenly jumps back into the carriage before Doyle knows it, and then it is too late for Doyle, who only can watch in frustration and anger as his target passes before him and waves goodbye with a "I'm so sorry" beatific smile on his face which really means *beep* you, loser".
I've always wanted to do that every time I travelled on the London Underground, really. If only someone had been chasing me, he he he.