Mathieu ESPAGNET

Hello,

Cinema came into my life by chance. Nothing was planned, and yet, looking back, I realize I was destined for it without even knowing. I grew up with films from all over the world — from In the Mood for Love to Raging Bull, from Breathless to City of God. Each one left a mark on me, like an invisible scar.

Becoming an actor was never a calculated decision; it was an inevitability that revealed itself. To embody a character is not to perform. It is to be pierced, emptied, and then inhabited by another existence. It is a brutal surrender, close to trance. I am no longer myself — I become the space through which a story takes shape.

For me, cinema has something of a ritual, almost sacred. Every role is an offering, a stripping down. And out of that fragility comes power: the power to move, to disturb, to shake a spectator. Because I too am that spectator, hypnotized in front of the screen, ready to lose myself in a fictional world that always holds some truth about the real one.