- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Il Sorpasso (US: The Easy Life), Italy-France, 1962. Filming began with a double for the absent Perrin with Vittorio Gassman in his car, to make use of a Rome emptied by the August 15 Ferragusto holiday. Perrin’s agent never liked the script and switched him to Cronaca familiare. Italian maestro Dino Risi searched, said Trintignant, “for a French actor who resembled… not Perrin but his already filmed double!” Gassman and JLT had plenty to talk about – they were rehearsing their Hamlets. (He watched Gassman’s version one night when the Italian arrived late on-stage and launched straight into “Friends, Romans, countrymen….”!) The film (but not the sequel, Il successo) was a surprise smash, launching Trintignant in Italy, inspiring Wim Wenders’ Im Lauf der Zeit and Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider.
- Nino Castelnuovo, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. France-West Germany, 1963. Auteur Jacques Demy first wanted Perrin for Catherine Deneuve’s lover in what the world loved as The Umbrellas of Cherbour. .Instead, he became her Prince Charming in Demy’s fairy tale, Peau d’âne, 1970.
- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Z, Algeria-France, 1969. “We were interchangeable,” commented Perrin. Money was scarce until Jacques Perrin decided to co-produce. Realisateur Costa-Gravas then gave him the choice of roles – the photographer or the petit juge. Perrin went for the lens… giving Trintignant the corker! And the best actor prize at the 1969 Cannes festival… were he starred in two other competing films: Giuseppe Patroni Griffi’s Metti, una sera a cena and Erich Rohmer’s Ma nuit chez Maude.
Birth year: 1941Death year: 2022Other name: Casting Calls: 3