Death of André Wilms, favorite actor of Aki Kaurismäki

© ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP/Archives

The actor André Wilms, known for his collaborations with the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki of whom he was the favorite actor, died Wednesday at the age of 74.

The reason for his death, which occurred in a Parisian hospital, was not communicated by his family, his agent Sébastien Perrolat said on Thursday to the AFP. André Wilms had given his agreement for several future commitments, he clarified.

Theater and cinema actor, stage director, André Wilms made himself known to the general public by playing Mr. Le Quesnoy in “Life is a long quiet river” (1988), by Étienne Chatiliez.

His character is a senior executive who mentors his wife and is mentored by his five children. “If you drink it cold just after the hot soup, it will cause the enamel to come off your teeth, Emmanuelle,” he explains for example.

Then he had been appreciated by moviegoers thanks to the tragicomic films of Aki Kaurismäki. Together they shot “La Vie de bohème” (1992), “The Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses” (1994), “Juha” (1999), “Le Havre” (2011), presented at the Cannes Film Festival, “L'Autre Side of Hope” (2017). Films marked by poetic dialogues, with a certain tenderness for its characters.

In “Le Havre”, André Wilms was a shoeshine boy, who extended his hand to a young undocumented African. “The Other Side of Hope” orchestrated the meeting between a Syrian migrant stranded against his will in the gray Finnish and a restaurateur separated from his alcoholic wife.

– “The mouths evolve” –

André Wilms laughed when he was asked about the functioning of a set whose boss does not speak the language: “The big ones directors don't need to talk! he told me: +Play like an old gentleman. Don't run. Don't spill anything+… Everyone runs in films today.”

“Aki is one of the rare directors who does not take actors for illiterates, although there are many of them”, he said again.

André Wilms has always been wary of the hazards of fame. Born in 1947 in Strasbourg, where he obtained a CAP in plasterer, he left his hometown for Toulouse. Having become a stagehand in a theater, he was then tempted to go on stage. He succeeded as an extra.

“I was always cast in Nazi roles, because I spoke good German”, he remembered. This mastery of Goethe's language will serve him well when he goes to Paris and lands a role in a “Faust” directed by Klaus Michael Grüber.

“It's the era which imposes the actors (…) Belmondo, everyone found him ugly. Depardieu, they said that he was a young agricultural leader. And so I believe that faces evolve with the times”, noted- he. “I would like to say that I am not responsible for my face.”

In his youth, he was involved in the Proletarian Left, a Maoist organization from the early 1970s. “We were looking for this utopia, desperately (…) so we hoped in the Chinese Revolution (…) “it collapsed. I have a few comrades, some who committed suicide, others who became mute. I believed in it, really. I even believed that theater could change,” he explained .

He must appear one last time on the screen in Patrice Leconte's “Maigret”, which comes out on February 23.

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