- Jackie Berroyer, Encore, France, 1996. Odd replacement even by French standards.A witty, intelligent actor subbed by an older TV ham.
- Daniel Auteuil, Quleque jours avec moi, France, 1988. The cherished French realisateur Claude Sautet also considered Michel Blanc. Working with Sautet, said Auteuil, changed his acting style.
- Michel Blanc, Le deuxième Souffle, France, 2007. Luchini spurned reealisateur Alain Corneau’s invite to play Commissaire Blot. “He gave me a Yes…Or, he didn’t say No.” Blanc is quite brilliant. The unnecessaryremake of the 1966 Jean-Pierre Melville classic was not.
- André Dusollier, Les Herbes folles (Wil Grass), France-Italy, 2008. You want mercurial temperament? Luchini is the go to guy in Paris. (He’s a one-man stage show and a talk-show regular for that reason). The aged New Wave icon, Alain Resnais, called about his latest scenario. Luchini read it, “didn’t understand it and told him so. He took it very badly. So, I never worked with Resnais” – who went back to his regular leading man, indeed, his regular leading couple: Dusollier and Sabine Azéma (Mrs Resnais).
- Lambert Wilson, La Princesse de Montpensier, France, 2009. Réalisateur Bertrand Tavernier asked Luchini: Do you ride? Like any actor sniffing a gig with a top director, he said: Yes. Be careful, warned the unit’s equine stuntichian, Mario Luraschi. “He’s not comfortable with horses. When you see him mounted on-screen, it’s usually me off-screen holding the bridle.” Luchini quit for another movie and Tavernier then took 18th Century rôle in a totally different direction by asking Albert Dupontel if he rode. Not as well as Lambert Wilson, he more or less said in a letter to Tavernier after the release, praising Wilson’s work. ”Far better than I could have been.”
- Vincent Lindon, Les chevaliers blanc, Belgium-France, 2014. “I have just the one caprice,” said Luchini “I never work until after 12 noon. So when they offered me this film in Africa and I found I’d have to get up each day at 5 am, I said: Non.”
- Christian Clavier, Une Heure De Tranquillite, France, 2014. Luchini had starred in the Paris stage play and approved of a film version. “He was ready to go for it,” realisateur Patrice Leconte told me in a kind e-mail entitled The Casting Waltzes. “And he’d be just too happy to do another film with me. But he eventually turned down our proposal, on the pretext he’d already played the character on-stage much longer than he should have. No hard feelings on my side as this made it possible for me to join forces again with Christian – fantastic in the film!” Clavier was part of Leconte’s triple film series, Les bronzés. “We had long agreed to work together again as soon as the opportunity arose.”
- François Marthouret, Grace de Dieu, France, 2018. Paris auteur François Ozon asked Luchini to play the real-life Cardinal Barbarin, acused of covering up pedophile piriests in France. Said Luchini in typical wry fashion: “I am not sure my Figaro [newspaper] readers will like that.” ie his bourgeois fans. Title came from Barbarin’s astonishing comment: “Grâce à Dieu ces faits sont prescrits” – “Thank God these events are subject to the statute of limitation.”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 8