Perez dances from acting to photography

Vincent Perez in A Butterfly Kiss directed by Karine Silla (Image from kinopoisk.ru)

Instinct, passion and patience. These, for Vincent Perez, are the key ingredients of acting, which also serve the Fanfan the Tulip star in his other passion, photography. The sought-after actor is in Moscow to photograph Bolshoi Theater dancers.

“I love the dance. I’ve always been fascinated by dancing,“ Perez told RT.

It’s not the first time the star has tried his hand at photographing ballet: Perez already has pictures of Opera de Paris dancers in his portfolio. It was Nikolay Tsiskaridze, one of Russia's most celebrated artists, who invited the French actor-turned-photographer to Russia’s iconic Bolshoi for a photo shoot, comissioned by the RuArts gallery.

“I met Nikolay Tsiskaridze and he said we could do photos together. I thought, Wow, this is amazing! A star is ready to do photos with me. I was very touched,” 48-year-old Perez recalls. 
He says photography for him is a way to share his experiences with people. “I’ve been doing movies, travelling all over the world; I’ve met incredible people. It’s a way for me to keep that with me as a souvenir. I like to capture moments. I like the contact, I like people, I like to see emotions that we share,” Perez said in an exclusive interview with RT.

Perez has been making movies for over twenty years, with his most important role probably in Indochine, where he played alongside Catherine Deneuve.

Perez is half-Spanish, half-German. Is he acting from his heart or from his head?

“I think I’m a physical actor. It goes to the brain and then to the body. The more I age, the more I’m interested in the psychology of the characters…What I like about photography is that it ages well. When you take a photo, even if it’s a bad photo that you look at 20 years after, it becomes interesting. Because it’s a moment from the past. And that’s my favorite theme – the relationship with the past.”

Photography and cinema obviously go hand in hand for the versatile Frenchman.

 “I grew up with the idea that I’d become an artist. I was drawing all the time. And then I thought that in order to become an artist you have to know things and know the world. So, I decided to take up photography. It was a way to discover people, to have new experiences. One day I discovered that it was possible to be an actor if you really wanted.”

Valeria Paikova, RT

Source: Russia Today