A « L’amour flou » sticker on a computer, walls covered with Escazal Production posters, and the complete series of Mad Men next to a pile of scripts: here’s what Sophie Revil’s and Denis Carot’s offices – the producers of Les Petits Meurtres d’Agatha Christie – look like. We were able to meet with Sophie Révil and ask her a few questions...

​

​

Les Petits Fans: Could you tell us more about your role on the show? Do you see yourself more as a “directrice artistique” or as a showrunner?

 

Sophie Révil : It’s kind of the same to me: “showrunner” is the English equivalent of “directeur artistique”. I co-created the characters and I had the original idea for the show. The original concept was to French up Agatha Christie’s characters: I submitted it to France 2 and it morphed into what you know today. The first two protagonists – Larosière and Lampion – were created by Anne Giafferi and Murielle Magellan. For the second season, I created the characters with Sylvie Simon and Thierry Debroux: I had a very precise idea of what I wanted and so I guided their creation. Then, it is indeed a showrunner’s job, which means designing all of the show’s visual identity in association with the directors – such as Eric Woreth, who was a central part of the show – the head operator Bertrand Mouly and the production designer Moundji Couture. A lot of it is sharing visual references: movies, especially Hitchcock’s movies which were very important to us; and then coordinate the creative team, and also decide on the characters’ looks with the costume designer...

I choose the novel and then we brainstorm together on the characters’ development. Season 2 gradually evolved: we went more and more into personal story arcs and comedy, and I’m the one pushing for that, encouraging the writers to mix the characters and the plots. To have every investigation be about their sister or their mother is quite far-fetched... but we don’t care about that; that’s what the English call “suspension of disbelief”: you believe what you want to believe. We also really pushed the comedic side of things, like in Ding Dingue Dong. I also intervene during the editing process: I watch all the rushes and I’m careful that we don’t get too much into farcical territory. The directors send the edited film to Denis Carot – my associate – and myself, and we work on modifying it with the directors before showing the final product to France 2. There’s also the music... ​Actually pretty much every creative part of the process goes through me, so that there’s consistency.

​

 

LPF: How did you become a producer?

​

SR: I was all about cinema, I loved literature. I went to Sciences Po, in the public service section to go to the ENA afterwards, which really didn’t lead to producing! I went to a business school in the US, at Columbia University in New York, and I was lucky enough to be an au-pair for an actress: Barbara Hershey. It helped me fully realize that I wanted to work in the cinema industry. It took me a while to actually make it! I started as a producer on TV programs then as head writer on TV shows such as Navarro or L’instit... And when I was 31, there suddenly was this opportunity: the company I was working for got bought out, and so I created Escazal with Denis Carot.

​

 

LPF: Did you watch TV shows earlier in your life, and did it influence you? Does it still influence you today?

​

SR: A lot! I watched a lot of TV shows: The Persuaders!, The Wild Wild West, Daktari, Flipper... The shows from the 60s, 70s! I still watch a lot of series, I still love cinema and I’m a frequent moviegoer, but I get more satisfaction out of watching TV shows, like The Night Of for example, or The Marvellous Mrs Maisel... I subscribed to a lot of streaming platforms... I have eclectic taste, from Stranger Things to Gentleman Jack.

​

​

LPF: Is there an episode that struck you more than the others, and if so why? A favourite quote?

​

SR: There’s an episode that I truly think is perfect: The Pale Horse. It has everything, truly. Of course Pension Vanilos impressed us all: Marlene’s death, the incredible performances from Blandine Bellavoir and Samuel Labarthe when they’re crying in the cafe… It’s wonderful, we are very proud of the films we make. More recently I love L’Heure Zéro.

As for favourite quotes I have a lot of them! « Oh mais il doit faire de toutes petites photos », « J’ai beau chercher votre sexe reste un mystère », « Même avec des bas résille un sac de pommes de terre ça sera toujours un sac de pommes de terre », « Gourde ça doit vous dire quelque chose », « Je suis secrétaire et je m'attache très facilement »... What I also absolutely love, but you have to see the image of Avril falling down while saying it, is the “Il a mis sa langue dans MA bouche !!”

​

​

LPF: How did you handle the addition of secondary characters such as Tim, Euphrasie, and Arlette?

 

SR: It happens as the story develops. We wanted Laurence to fall in love so we created Maillol. Cyril Gueï, I think, is an incredible actor with so much whimsy and class... I would love to cast him again in a show. Concerning Tricard, it’s because he was good that he started to get more and more important: we loved him more every time. It’s also about the circumstances: because Marlène was leaving the office to marry Herbert, we had to create a character, and that was Arlette Carmouille, and it’s a tribute to Sylvie Simon’s genius, and to Marie Berto’s genius who agreed to be ugly, to be ridicule. I love the romance between Carmouille and Tricard in Rendez-vous avec la mort. I don’t love the episode because it’s a bit too classic for me, but I love the dialogues and that scene when they look at each other in the cemetery... it’s super cute. We have to try and keep this poetry because the writing on Les Petits Meurtres is extraordinary, and – and I can never say it enough – it’s Sylvie Simon who put the bar so high and who pushed the others to do just as good.

 

​

LPF: So you have a hand in every step of the production of an episode, but which do you prefer? And which do you dread?

​

SR: My favourite steps are the writing and the editing, but it’s kind of the same thing actually because when you’re editing you’re also rewriting in a way, you change the order of some scenes, cut some others... What I really don’t like are budget constraints, because I’m also a producer, so it’s up to me and Denis Carot to go and fight for money from France 2. France 2 has made some budget cuts, thus it’s a reality that there always are constraints and we are forced sometimes to cut the things we like, and it can be quite heartbreaking at times.

What can also be difficult is when I don’t get along with the directors. It has happened already, and it gets a bit tense on set then, but overall it went really great with the actors, it was an amazing team, the whole crew is adorable... We all get along really well. As a matter of fact, you’re going to see all of us at the end of Un Cadavre au Petit-Déjeuner because we all acted in the last scene!

​

​

LPF: In older articles, there was talk of episodes that never saw the light of day (such as an episode set in a circus that got brought up often) ; what became of these scenarios? Were they abandoned or reworked on?

​

SR: The one with the circus never got written but Eric Woreth, and Thierry Debroux really wanted to do it indeed, and also Blandine who wanted to do a trapeze act... We sort of saw it coming to a point where everybody would want to do a number, and it would have been extremely expensive as well as really difficult to organize so we scraped it. On the other hand there are sometimes scenarios that have been written but are not good enough, so I scrap them as well. It almost never happens, it was the case with a scenario adapted from the novel Un Deux Trois, which started at a dentist, but it was an overly complicated story, we never got it right... So yeah it happens, even if it’s rare, that we fail too!

​

 

LPF: With the musical episode coming out, the songs featured in previous episodes and the excellent soundtrack provided by Stéphane Moucha, could we hope to be able to buy the show’s music one day?

​

SR: We tried to do a disc but it’s complicated because this is not what we do as a daily job. We asked around to record companies, music producers... But out of six million viewers, not everyone is going to buy the disc... It was already very expensive to have the songs written for us, the music composed, to train the actors to sing and dance, so making a disc is an additional cost without any guarantee that it would be profitable.

​

 

LPF: Do you sometimes look at what is being said among fans?

​

SR: I don’t look at it that much because I’m not really on social media myself. I have a facebook account but I only share what the official Les Petits Meurtres page posts! I don’t post anything on twitter or instagram, I simply don’t have time: I’m extremely busy with work, I have a family... With that said, I am so touched when sometimes while an episode airs, I look at it and I love it, it makes me so happy to see the joy and happiness we bring to people. I am really thankful to the viewers who love us and to the fans.

 

​

LPF: Can you talk a bit about « Ils étaient Dix » on M6? How was the shooting?

 

SR: It was a really difficult shoot because the director, Pascal Laugier, kept missing deadlines, but all of the actors were amazing: Romane Bohringer, Manon Azem, Samuel Le Bihan, Guillaume de Tonquédec, Matilda Lutz, Marianne Denicourt Nassim Si Ahmed, Patrick Mille, Isabelle Candellier, Samy Seghir. We’re very happy with the result, it’s great, very modern, shot beautifully... It will be shown at Série Mania and then probably towards March-April on M6.

 

​

LPF: Do you plan on producing other films with more of an indie vibe like you did with « L’amour flou »?

 

SR: Yes we have a number of films for the cinema in production. Canal+ commissioned us the writing of the show “L’amour Flou” because they had really liked it. It’s about a couple who moves in two apartments connected by their children’s room. We turned it into a sitcom of 12 episodes, 30 minutes each, centred on the life in this very strange place: is this lifestyle going to endure the obstacles, the new love stories, the money struggles... It’s very funny. It’s in writing stage right now and we are hoping to shoot it next year. We are also producing Romane Bohringer’s second film: an adaptation of Clémentine Autain’s novel “Dites-lui que je l’aime” ; a really beautiful novel about her mother the actress Dominique Laffin. We are doing another feature film with Jean-Pierre Améris. The last one we did with him was Illettré for France 3, with Kevin Azaïs, which was a beautiful film. This new one is called Les Folies Fermières, it’s a comedy about a farmer who sets up a cabaret in his farm. It’s based on the true story of David Caumette, who did create a cabaret in his farm near Toulouse.

 

​

​LPF: Can you confirm that there are indeed supernatural elements and unexplained phenomena in the show?

 

SR: It’s something that Agatha Christie liked, table-turning, so this is still kind of in her style! We are upfront about doing some things that can’t really be explained, even if France 2 was very reluctant, especially about Maillol’s “return”. In the end everybody believes what they want: is it a mental projection from Laurence, is it actually a ghost, do we have to explain it? Of course not! That’s what’s great about Les Petits Meurtres, we have no limit. We are allowed to mix genres, to mix all sorts of comedy: it can be very burlesque at times, or very psychological, sometimes it can be dialogue driven comedy, “theater” style, and of course comedy based on characters... There’s no other show that does it! It’s true that we really don’t hold back: for example, France 2 wasn’t on board with the laxatives from Ding Dingue Dong... But it all depends on how it’s done, and in this case it’s done excessively well by Christophe Campos because he only shows Laurence’s feet when he’s in the loo. It has to be done with finesse indeed, but this is actually our trademark: we’re never vulgar.

​

​

LPF: What was the most complicated thing to do when you went from season 1 to season 2? How are you preparing for season 3?

 

SR: Frow season 1 to season 2, the hardest was convincing France 2 because they weren’t really on board with the idea of a second season, but we ended up being a bit ahead of them. It’s not the case this time around because they were quite enthusiastic; they even were the ones to push us to do it! But in any case, the hardest thing is writing. It’s the only thing that’s truly difficult. When you have a good script, everything’s there. We’re already past that stage because I think the first two scripts are excellent. We’re still working on it; I think it’s going to be good. Now we just have to not screw up the casting! As of right now we aren’t looking for any well known actors because the show’s presence is already so strong...LPF: Do you have any infos on season 3 that you’d like to share with us?SR: As for the scripts and the characters, I’ve changed writers so it’s a new team! Thierry Debroux will still write for episodes, but he didn’t have enough time to participate in creating the characters. Sylvie Simon is off on new horizons so it’s mainly the two talented writers from L’Heure Zéro, Flore Kosinetz and Hélène Lombard, with two other writers and me, who have created the three new main characters that you are going to discover. It’s the same concept that we used in season 2: there are class issues because it’s really important to me. There are characters that come from a very chic upper class, one in particular, and there are working class characters. I think it’s a very strong dynamic. There’s of course feminism: we’re right in it because it takes place in 1971. It’s so interesting because it’s the time of the sexual revolution but it’s also a very sexist period! It’s the years of the machos and even more so because sexuality is becoming much freer so you can compliment a woman on her breasts, put your hand on her butt... It’s an opportunity to talk about all this, of misogyny, of men-women relationship today, in the Me Too era, by putting ourselves in a time when all of it was still completely accepted. It’s kind of a magnifying glass put on things that can still happen today. There’s at least one new thing: since we began, we adapted 35 novels of Agatha Christie, and she wrote 66. There’s about ten of them that we don’t have the rights to, and the rest is just very difficult to adapt. So we explained to James Prichard that we had to be free of this obligation to only adapt Christie’s novels to focus on the spirit of her writing, like they did with Conan Doyle and the BBC Sherlock, and they agreed. Thus the first two episodes are adapted from the following novels: La Nuit qui ne finit pas, an excellent book which I highly recommend, and Le Vallon. But afterwards everything or almost everything should be adapted from Agatha Christie.

​

​

LPF: Anything else you’d like to add?

 

SR : When I think back to how much season 1 fans didn’t want the show to change in the second season, and how the first season is almost forgotten nowadays, I’m not really worried about how it’s going to go for the third one. I think people will be curious. The first four scripts are in writing stage, the first one is already well far along, and I find it absolutely hilarious, it’s amazing, and honestly I think we already pulled it off, because the viewers are going to see the first episode of season three, and since they already went through Jeux de Glaces, it’s going to be alright.

 

Many thanks to Sophie Révil for seeing us and answering all of our questions. We wish her the best for season 3 debut and we are as excited as she is for this new adventure!

​

​