"There is nothing that makes me happier than seeing lots of people laughing together for an hour and a half about the same thing."confide Panayotis Pascot

This text corresponds to part of the transcription of the interview above. Click on the video to watch it in full.

Léa Salamé: the guest of 20 Heures is a multi-card artist, very talented, author, actor, director, producer. He sold 400,000 copies of his first book, Next time you bite the dustadapted to the theater. He is playing his second sold-out show and will be at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on Friday evening for two exceptional performances. Panayotis Pascot, good evening.

Panayotis Pascot : Good evening, thank you. I still don’t have the license, if you want to specify that.

Ah, you still don’t have your license.

No, problem with the slots, unfortunately. But I’m working on it. Thank you very much for having me, thank you very much.

Because for the rest, it’s pretty good. At only 27 years old, you have already written a bestseller. You have already brought together 200,000 people on this show, which is called Between the two. And now, you have decided to treat yourself to the legendary stage of the Opéra Garnier. Only Gad Elmaleh did it before you. What is the next step? A duet with Céline Dion?

My God, the dream. Nightmare for her, I think, I really don’t know how to sing… I think she knows how to spot people who can’t sing from afar. She won’t propose to me, but it’s exceptional. Just seeing this photo moves me. I feel so lucky. I can’t wait. I love this place.

What is doing stand-up at the opera? The mix of genres?

Yes, but it’s also a magnificent meeting place between an art that is quite young and a place that is imbued with a crazy culture. I’ve been lucky enough to have been doing this job for ten years, and ten years ago we started doing stand-up in the cellars, which is a pretty special art, it’s still making jokes alone with a microphone in front of lots of people. And after ten years, to be able to do a show in this magnificent hall, it’s a joy, a celebration. I’m so excited and I love this job so much that being able to do it there, I can’t wait, I just have that to say.

You started in small cellars, in small rooms where there were three spectators. Today it’s full. What is very interesting about you is that you bring back young people, (…) you talk to a generation, you say your doubts, you talk about mental health, you talk about your anxieties, your melancholy, your depression, you have broken a lot of taboos. But there are also all ages, all generations. Young people bring their parents, even their grandparents. There are urban people, rural people, gay people, straight people, there is everything. Are you proud to bring people together, in a somewhat fractured France?

Frankly, it’s exceptional. I want to knock on wood, but there isn’t any. But no, it’s exceptional. What I like most about this job is that stand-up is a special art where the more personal you are, the more universal you become. I remember that my first show had such an impact on me. I played at Point Virgule, which is an 80-seat venue in Paris. There was an 87-year-old lady who came to see me and said: “I’ve never heard anyone talk about my life like that.” I said to myself, she’s an 87-year-old woman, I was a young man of 22 at the time, and yet she recognized herself. And that’s what I love about this job, it’s that when you talk about yourself it creates echoes in certain places. And yes, everywhere in France, I see that there are all types of audiences and there is nothing that makes me happier than seeing lots of people laughing together for an hour and a half about the same thing.

That said, you say: “I have always been vioque”, that is your expression.

Yes, that, I have always been an old man. Always since I was little, my parents, my mother told me not long ago, she said to me: “You’re quite old, I can tell you now, you scared me when you were little.” I came back to the living room at 7 years old, I was like: “What did the news say?”, I wanted to follow everything. I did six years of accordion, I chose myself to do six years of accordion, what a vioque! I was a fan of Indochina, not the group, but the country. I loved Indochina, I watched all the news on Indochina. I may have been wearing berets… I don’t need to tell you everything either, it’s the news. But I was a vioque, I was scary, I ate raisin bread… In short, strange child.

And it’s true that you went every evening, because you had a real fear of death, to check that your parents were breathing while they slept. While in general it is the opposite, it is the parents who will see if the baby is breathing.

Yes, I went down the stairs and listened. I was lucky, my dad has a disgusting snore, so I could know he was alive. My mother was more complicated, so I was going to wake her up. And after a while, they took me to the psychologist for that, because I was telling people that I touched my nipples to disappear. I hadn’t planned to say that to the news, but it’s part of my special childhood. And after a while, my parents found the solution. They bought a baby monitor which they plugged in and I could hear them. So I think I heard them snoring for years, I think I deprived them of sexuality a little. And I take advantage of the news to apologize: Dad, Mom, sorry! I’m not at home anymore, enjoy! But yes, indeed, I was very, very anxious.

And you are also anxious as a young adult.

Thank you for reminding me.

No, because you talked about it in your books. You have broken the mental health taboo. You talked about your very serious depression. The last time I interviewed you, a few months ago, you said: “Life is 12 out of 20.” Is it still 12 out of 20 or are we at 13, 14, there?

There, currently, with you, I think I am at 14, 16, even. Yes, often, we grow up with lots of people a little older who tell you that “you’ll see, life, it’s going to be cool, it’s going to be awesome, it’s going to be crazy.” And I find that it puts a kind of pressure. I grew up telling myself that life had to be incredible and in fact, life is made up of lots of little side steps, lots of little niggles at times. Indeed, in the show, I say that. They say that life is crazy, because it’s a cognitive bias. It’s because all the things that we find crazy, if we think about it carefully, they are included in life. Because life is a concept that I would describe as all-encompassing.

But if we think like that, it means that all the bad things are also understood in life. You have to take an average. And it calmed me down to get an average. In life, there is death, there are amputations, there is war, there are cauliflowers. But there is also ice cream. And presto, we arrive at 12 out of 20.

Not bad, 12 out of 20, then.

We move on to the next year, at school, with 12 out of 20. And we have less weight on our shoulders, sometimes. So I tell myself that life is 12.

The show is called Between the twoat the Opéra Garnier. The tickets sold out in seconds. That will be two exceptional performances on Friday. On the other hand, you continue to tour all over France this summer. Thank you, Panayotis Pascot, for being with us.

Thank you for inviting me. Thank you so much.

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