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Patrick Bauchau: Télé 7 Jours

Patrick Bauchau, a psychiatrist among the Bardot

From Télé 7 Jours - August 15, 1997 (English Translation)
by Cecile Negrevergne

He imposes himself in an esoteric series that has become a must-see on American TV.

At the front gate of the house at Louveciennes, Patrick Bauchau, graying at the temples and nonchalantly charming, welcomes us surrounded by his three dogs who are barking happily.

For my stay, we installed ourselves almost under the easel of Gerard Priault, a painter friend who lives there. Patrick is only in transit, for he has lived in LA since 1990. This year he was in The Pretender, a series in which he is one of the main characters, with record ratings on NBC.

The family home of his wife, Mijanou, the sister of Brigitte Bardot, is a little jewel of Scandinavian wood lovingly maintained. Patrick is inexhaustible: "'Le Chalet,' as the Bardot family calls it, was the Finnish pavilion at the World Expo of 1889. An ancestor bought it and brought it to the estate."

A journey of initiation without violence.

The Bauchau's live a friendly Bohemian life on both sides of the Atlantic. "Our house in LA is quite as poetic," says Mijanou, "with the look of a Tuscan palace." Patrick appreciates working on TV - he had already had appearances on other series, one of which was an episode of Columbo. "It evokes very well the world of today. Sydney Green, my character on The Pretender, is a psychiatrist who has educated Jarod Russell (Michael T. Weiss) at the mysterious 'Centre,' succeeding in making him a veritable 'Superman,' capable of assuming any identity and able to solve the most inextricable puzzles. Jarod has escaped, and my mission is to recapture him. I love this game of hide-and-seek, the more so as the scriptwriters allow me a lot of freedom. At the end of each episode other questions are posed. We are at the end of the first season (22 episodes), and for me Sydney Green is still a mystery. Young people adore Jarod's quest, his discovery of the outside world after an education in seclusion, a sort of journey of initiation without violence. Each one is able to see himself in school with the familiar prohibitions, which make childhood a world of constraints."

In movies Patrick has a clear preference for films by authors: "Even if they have diverse fortunes." Son of the writer Henry Bauchau, he debuted as a dilettante in 1966 with the first work of Rohmer, La Collectionneuse (The Collector). Then he studied Philology (linguistics). "I also had my post-60's blockhead period of manual labor and ecology. I was a carpenter while Mijanou had, in Paris, her decoration boutique 'Gain de Place'."

Patrick won the Golden Lion for best actor at the Venice Festival in 1982 for L'Etat des coses (The State of Things) by Wim Wenders. He continued his career in Europe and in the US with film directors like Zulawski, Corbiau, Costa Garvas, and Bigas Luna. He again found Wim Wenders in 1994 for Lisbon Story, then played in the Toni Marshall film Enfants de Salaud (Bastard Brood). Before being recalled to Hollywood for The Pretender, he finished Amour pour Amour (aka I Magi Randagi or We Free Kings) in Italy, the film script Pasolini was working on when he died.

No need of dubbing, Patrick translates his roles equally in English, Italian, Spanish, or French. "I was even a Portuguese priest, in Brazil. Happily I only had to say mass!"

In August, Patrick retakes the road to Hollywood for 26 new episodes of The Pretender. "But luckily I only shoot 2 days a week, which allows me to do some gardening, my new passion. In California, everything grows, it is a dream!"

Photo from Télé 7 Jours. Do not use photo without prior, written permission. Click image to see a larger, uncropped version in a new window.