As with the Sardous or the Seigners, with the Kassovitzes, one is an artist from father to son, even from father to daughter since Mathieu’s eldest, Carmen has already made her debut in the profession… And, following her accident motorcycle, which occurred last Sunday in Essonne, it is the whole clan which stands by his side. Like his father, Peter Kassovitz, who spoke the day after the tragedy to reassure the fans, to assure that the surgical operations had gone well and that his son was beginning a normal healing process. “He is surrounded by his family and loved ones, thank you all for your support,” concluded the actor’s father, who greeted the hospital staff in passing.
Peter Kassovitz, 85, played a founding role in Mathieu’s artistic awakening. Himself the son of a Jewish Hungarian cartoonist, graphic designer and caricaturist deported during the war, he became a director of films and fiction, sometimes taking his son on set – his wife was also an editor. In 1979, he dragged his son, aged around twelve, onto the set of Rendez-vous du Dimanche, presented by Michel Drucker, where he defended his film Au bout du bout du banc, which tells the chronicle of a family Jewish from the Paris suburbs. Little Mathieu Kassovitz’s first TV…
From his parents he kept this taste for cinema and the arts, but also for revolt, a character trait that has never left him. “As a child, every May 1, I paraded with my parents,” he confided in Télérama in 2014. My father arrived from Hungary in 1956, my mother left Zola’s Rougon-Macquart to go to Flore to meet Jean- Paul Sartre and John Coltrane, he continued. My parents have always been rebels. They are the ones who taught me to refuse the easy way, to never give in to it. If I managed to survive, it’s because I piss everyone off.”
In fact, he became known for his own style, notably with his film La Haine, which he wrote and directed in the mid-1990s. A social and cinematographic punch hailed by critics even though he won a César Award for Most Promising Actor for Watch Men Fall. He confirmed his talent with the success of Rivières pourpres in 2000 and continued his career as an actor, while taking a stand on numerous controversial subjects, using a frankness rather rare in the profession, openly criticizing the world of French cinema , which he considers too corporatist and gentrified. His flagship role in the series The Bureau of Legends has ensured him real popularity for several years.