Far from the small screen, it is in the theater that we find Benjamin Castaldi in a producer role. Asked by “Le Journal des Femmes” about his projects and his future on TV, he answered us without tongue in cheek.
Motivated by the quest for freedom, Benjamin Castaldi left Don’t Touch My Post in June 2023 to devote himself to the production of plays. Comfortable in his sneakers, and in his new transformed body, he answered the questions of the Women’s Journal.
You produce drunken night, performed at the Théâtre de la Madeleine, what did you like about this play?
Benjamin Castaldi. Catherine Jacob had a little health problem, and she was replaced by Julie Ferrier, who will play an absolutely explosive Simone with Philippe Lellouche. This piece was written in 1985 and, even if it contains two or three remarks that are not very 2026, it remains relevant today. It’s the meeting of two worlds and almost all of us have experienced “a drunken night” one day. Two or three times, I opened my eye in the morning without having any memory of what had happened the day before! (laughs). I loved producing this piece which was assembled in 15 days, watch in hand, with my partner! It’s very rewarding!
“I took a look at my family history”
Previously you produced Bungalow 21 which returned to the secrets of the Bungalow where Marilyn Monroe, Yves Montand, your grandmother, Simone Signoret and Arthur Miller stayed. Do you have other projects around your family history?
I think I’ve covered my family history a bit. The next time I talk about it will perhaps be in a film that I would like to make but it’s not for the moment. A version of Bungalow 21 should be offered on Broadway in 2027/2028 and it’s a big project. I also finished creating a piece called Pearl wedding and that we are trying to mount for the start of the school year. We also want to relaunch a great classic of French theater with a casting that will be quite surprising. We are working on several projects and it is a lot of fun.
What do you like about the theater?
It’s the immediate confrontation. Something happens on stage and people are happy… or not. I love it when the piece ends and I hear the audience laughing and clapping.
Are you considering a return to television?
I would love to return to TV, but I still need to be offered something and I need to like that something. That’s not the case for the moment… I’d like to play games because I love it and I wasn’t objectively bad at it. This is where I would be best.
You no longer wish to intervene in All beautiful, all new ?
It’s not that I don’t want to, but I have too many things on the stove. I’m going to Spain for a series on April 13 to meet Netflix Spain and I may need to go four days to New York for the play or a week to Los Angeles because I’m working on other projects: I now have, even more than before, the need to be free. If I participated in All beautiful, all newI could not be at the theater to attend the rehearsals. Now, when I do something, I don’t do it half-heartedly. We can’t do everything. And then theater is really a man’s business. So you have to be there.
“I am happy and balanced”
Don’t you miss the gang spirit that you knew when you were part of Cyril Hanouna’s columnists?
No, honestly, I don’t miss it. It was a part of my life but I moved on.
At the end of 2025, you spent two weeks alone on a sailboat. Why this challenge?
I’ve dreamed of crossing the Atlantic since I was little. When I was in the countryside, I had a large planisphere where I saw this great ocean, separating old Europe from the New World. The stories around the Mayflower (ship which transported the first British emigrants in 1620), the migrants’ dreams, the departure for the New World fascinated me even if I did not make the same journey. But being on the ocean for 14 days with nothing around, barely passing two boats, getting up at night to see the stars, and hearing the waves hitting the deck, it’s exhilarating!
Would you like to take on other challenges of this type?
Not at the moment but I would like to do San Francisco-Tahiti. This is another myth that I would like to discover, namely that of the film The Bounty rebels with Marlon Brando. But that won’t happen right away because it takes at least three months.
Interview The Women’s Journal.
