Philippe Risoli: “I am a son of the Trente Glorieuses”
You publish “Tell my son that I love him”. Make our mouths water.
These were the last words spoken by my father in 2021, just before cancer took his life. While those who accompanied me during my youth are disappearing, I wanted to pay tribute to them by retracing my journey. It is also a way of evoking the France of the Trente Glorieuses, an era that shaped me.
The person who meant the most in your family?
My mother. We had a close relationship and we understood each other in just one look.
I adored her as much as she loved me. She was the first to understand the passion for what would become my profession.
The movie you could watch a hundred times?
Fanfan the tulip, by Christian-Jaque with Gérard Philipe. It was the first and only time I went to the cinema with my mother. He was projected under the courtyard of a school.
The object that, in your family, crosses generations?
I have a music box that used to sit at my parents’ house, on their fireplace mantle. As soon as you open this inlaid wooden box, the song from the film resonates The River Kwai Bridge…
A gene you’re happy to have inherited?
The meaning of my mother’s retort. But I regret not having inherited my father’s very skillful hands.
A hidden talent?
I have always sung since elementary school, where I was part of the choir. I have also recorded two albums: Otherwise, in 2001, and Pretending to believe, in 2008.
A gesture of happy sobriety?
In Paris, with some exceptions, I only travel by bike.
But above all, I am a fan of selective sorting. And when I find a can, a cigarette butt, or plastic waste while walking on the beach or in the forest, it drives me crazy. I collect them systematically.
For what cause would you mobilize?
For the fight against cancer and the alleviation of the suffering of patients. I saw my parents leave in such difficult conditions…
A spiritual place where you like to take refuge?
Take refuge, I don’t know. But my three-year-old grandson loves going into churches. We both sit there for a few minutes and look around in silence.