While the duo of Gérard Lanvin and Franck Dubosc had made a lasting impression in the first Camping, the absence of Michel Saint-Josse’s character in the sequel was somewhat surprising. Many wondered why the actor hadn’t reprised his role in the second film. The answer was simple: Lanvin didn’t want to repeat the experience.
When the first Camping hit theaters in 2006, it was an instant hit. Audiences fell under the spell of the Flots-Bleus, a fictional campsite crowded with families and colorful locals. Among them, Patrick Chirac, the exuberant camper played by Franck Dubosc, instantly became iconic. But another character is making waves: Michel Saint-Josse, a bourgeois surgeon played by Gérard Lanvin, forced to spend his vacation at a campsite after his car breaks down.
The contrast between the two characters’ personalities helped make the film a huge popular success, with nearly 5 million admissions. However, when the sequel was in production, Lanvin declined, despite a tempting financial offer.
Actors’ Conflicts
Behind this decision lay tensions between the two actors, particularly a form of bitterness on Lanvin’s part. In a 2007 interview with our website, he stated:
“I did Franck Dubosc a favor once, I won’t do it twice, especially with all the good things he said about us. Camping is Franck Dubosc’s film, right? Yet I felt like I’d been in it. I think a partner has an obligation to talk about the pleasure they had talking to the person opposite them; I have little business being around someone who couldn’t understand the imperative and indispensable presence of the other person.”
He particularly deplores the fact that Dubosc, according to him, took full credit for the film, even though he believes he played an important role in the creation of his character, well beyond what was originally written, even in the evolution of the script, even though the comedy was inspired by a Franck Dubosc sketch.
“Camping only works because I found the job. The original subject was already chosen, but I came up with the idea for my character, I came up with the idea of his old car breaking down next to a campsite, and I came up with the idea of a character observing another in his delirium.”
An inconsistent return according to Lanvin
Visually irritated, Gérard Lanvin adds that he has no desire to return in a sequel where he would have to, in his words, “play an idiot,” a role he ironically attributes to Dubosc: “I don’t see why I would return to a campsite after playing a man who hates camping. I would have to play an idiot, but that wasn’t my role, it was Franck Dubosc’s…”
For his part, director Fabien Onteniente has always explained that the structure of the Camping saga was designed to allow Patrick Chirac to evolve, facing a new character in each installment. Thus, Richard Anconina took over in the second film, followed by a trio of young actors in Camping 3. That said, this justification is not enough to mask the profound disagreements between the two stars of the first film.
Attempt at reconciliation 10 years later
These professional differences led to a real rift between the two actors, who did not speak again for nearly a decade. Their attempt at reconciliation materialized in 2015 with the film Pension complète, a remake of La Cuisine au beurre (1963) by Florent Emilio Siri, in which Lanvin and Dubosc reprised the roles previously played by Bourvil and Fernandel and where they acted opposite each other… while at war, once again.
But this reunion did not have the desired effect. The film was a commercial and artistic failure. In an interview with BFMTV in 2020, Gérard Lanvin did not mince his words.
“It was a business-oriented film. We got screwed. You have to accept it. You get over it. You don’t go from Camping’s 6 million admissions to 200,000 admissions like that. There has to be something awful about the film.”
Behind the spotlight and apparent success of popular comedies, there sometimes lies a much more nuanced reality. That of actors with opposing visions, unspoken tensions, and professional disillusionment. A decade of estrangement between Gérard Lanvin and Franck Dubosc is proof of this.
