Imaginary interview with Sim
by Charactorium · Sim (1926 — 2009) · Performing Arts · 5 min read
Late afternoon in a Parisian brasserie, not far from the television studios. Sim arrives late, a mischievous glint in his eye, a gravelly voice, a scarf carelessly knotted. He orders a coffee, settles in, and warns right away that he has never been able to talk about himself without slipping in a silly remark.
—Before the sets and cameras, what were your beginnings like?
Long, sir, it was long. Under my real name, Simon Berryer, I went through a series of odd jobs and cabarets for years, making fifteen people laugh in a smoky room and wondering if the guy in the back was asleep or dead. The cabaret, back then, was the school: you learned to hold an audience that could throw you out between drinks. Many broke through young; I found my audience late, when television and that nascent café-théâtre finally came looking for me. I take a strange pride in that: you can start a comedy career when others are already thinking about retirement.
You can start a comedy career when others are already thinking about retirement.
—What did your time on music-hall and cabaret stages teach you?
The music-hall taught me that laughter is a physical craft. You warm up a room like you warm up an engine, with your body, your voice, your eyes. In those cabarets, there was no editing to save a failed punchline: if your act fell flat, you felt it in your gut before you saw it on their faces. I forged my repertoire comedy there, those characters I reworked from room to room, twisting them a bit more each night. That's where I understood that I wasn't a man of elegant text, but a stage animal, a guy who needs to feel the audience's breath to exist.
—How was the Baroness de la Tronche-en-Biais born?
She was born from a wig, even before being a character. An improbable, oversized wig, and I looked at myself in the mirror with that foundation, those fake eyelashes, that makeup from music-hall that turns your face into a caricature. The Baronne de la Tronche-en-Biais was there, that offbeat old aristocrat, with a high-pitched voice, an extravagant and kitsch dress. We were in the 1970s, at the peak of variety shows, and that grotesque drag made me popular all over France. People didn't remember Simon Berryer; they remembered that half-mad baroness spouting absurdities with the confidence of a duchess.
People didn't remember Simon Berryer; they remembered that half-mad baroness.
—What did that cross-dressing, that outrageous costume, represent for you?
Drag on stage is as old as theater: a man dresses as a woman for effect, and all the comedy lies in the gap between what I am and what I pretend to be. Putting on the heavy dress, the wig, the exaggerated makeup, it was disappearing. Behind those paints, I could allow myself anything: vulgarity, stupidity, the nerve of a senile bourgeois woman. The costume wasn't an accessory; it was the very spring of laughter. Once disguised as the Baroness, I was afraid of nothing, especially not ridicule, because ridicule was precisely my job.
—You were a regular on Saturday night shows. What did you love about live TV?
Live TV was oxygen. Those variety shows on Saturday night were triumphant, and on those sets, nothing was edited, nothing was fixed: you played life without a net. I loved improvising, unsettling hosts with offbeat comebacks, watching them fumble for words while I launched into an absurdity. It was the golden age of variety comedy, that blessed time when live broadcasts left room for all kinds of fantasies. A well-groomed presenter losing control of his show because of a drag baroness, believe me, there is no greater spectacle. I lived for those moments of organized chaos.
—You talk about chaos. Did you enjoy provoking your audience that much?
Provoking, yes, but without malice, in absurd and grating laughter. I had a taste for the grotesque, that freedom of tone that set some serious people's teeth on edge. On a variety show set, when everything is meticulously arranged—the set, the lights, the cameras—there's a childish joy in messing it all up. I wasn't looking for scandal for its own sake; I was looking for that moment when the audience tips, when they don't know whether to laugh or worry. That's where comedy truly comes alive. The rest is just a rehearsed routine.
I was looking for that moment when the audience tips, when they don't know whether to laugh or worry.
—In film, you played many supporting roles. How did you experience that position?
The supporting role is an art in itself, sir. Between 1968 and 1985, I was sought after for my silhouette and my offbeat acting in a host of popular comedies. I wasn't the star at the top of the bill; I was the one who crosses the scene and blows it up in thirty seconds. I crossed paths with monsters like Louis de Funès, whose energy on set left you breathless. A supporting comedian, as they said, brings the grain of madness that lifts a sequence. I always preferred a colorful appearance to a dull lead role; they didn't ask me to be credible, they asked me to be irresistible.
—You also worked with Jean Yanne. What drew you to his world?
Irreverence, plain and simple. Jean Yanne made satirical and provocative comedies, right in the spirit of the 1970s when we laughed at everything: power, religion, the self-righteous. His irreverent humor was mine: grating, free, a bit roguish. With him, I could fully express my troublemaking side, adding my layer of grotesque to his attack on surrounding stupidity. We shared the conviction that laughter doesn't have to ask permission. Those collaborations rank among the most fun I've had, because nothing was lukewarm—neither the intentions nor the lines.
—Café-théâtre was very important at that time. What did you find there?
Proximity, warmth, danger. The Parisian café-théâtre was booming, with venues like the Café de la Gare or Le Splendid where a whole generation was inventing a new kind of humor. Those small rooms in the Latin Quarter, those tiny stages where the audience drank a beer a meter away from you, they were the laboratory of free, intimate laughter. We performed there without big means, stripped down, bare bones. I rubbed shoulders with that nascent scene, and I loved that intimacy where you could feel every breath in the room. After the big television sets, those café-théâtres brought me back to the essentials: a man, an audience, and nothing in between.
—What was a typical day like for you, between those stages and the studios?
As a night artist, I started late, inevitably. Mornings were for reading the papers, answering the phone, preparing my texts or improvisations. Afternoons were for rehearsals, studio shoots, and especially those long makeup and fitting sessions to compose my drag creatures. But the real heart of the job was the evening: performances at the café-théâtre, variety recordings, galas. It was in front of the audience, live or on stage, that I gave my all. I lived in Paris, close to the studios and theaters, in that constant buzz. My meals followed that offbeat rhythm: late dinners at the brasserie after the show, with the music-hall crowd.
—Looking back, how would you like to be remembered as a comedian?
Oh, I have few illusions about posterity; it has a short memory. If I were to imagine being read about long from now, I'd like people to remember a man who started late and never stopped playing the grotesque seriously. The Baroness, her improbable wigs, her absurd live comebacks—all that belongs to a golden age of variety shows that is already fading, with the end of state television. I didn't seek to be refined or distinguished; I sought to be free and to make people laugh hard. If some kid one day decides to be brilliantly silly because he saw me, then I'll have won.
I didn't seek to be refined or distinguished; I sought to be free and to make people laugh hard.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Sim's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.