At 60 years old, José Garcia is one of the figures of comedy in France. However, the actor almost never got into cinema. He dreamed of a completely different career…
On March 17, José Garcia passed an important milestone: turning sixty! And if he is today one of the favorite actors of the French, nothing predestined him to make the seventh art his profession. For a while, he moved towards a completely different profession…
José Garcia disgusted with his dream job: “I definitely didn’t want to look like that!”
“I started my schooling wrong: I arrived directly in first grade, my parents only spoke to me in Spanish, so I didn’t know the same nursery rhymes as my classmates. In short, integration was a little difficult”this son of Spanish immigrants had also made known in the columns of Paris Match in 2016. Like Amel Bent, who was not initially destined for singing, José Garcia did not dream of being an actor when he was younger: “In 3thI wanted to become a cabinetmaker”.
But ultimately, José Garcia quickly changed his mind: “I went to see a guy who had 12 degrees in his blood and who showed me how to make a wooden keel. I said to myself that I definitely don’t want to look like that!”. Result of the accounts, the young man headed towards the army: “I was neither good nor bad at school, I just spent my time daydreaming and making my friends laugh. As I was a little lost, I decided to join the army. I drove military trucks. It was fun”.
José Garcia experienced “ten years of trouble” before making a name for himself in the cinema
It was thanks to the intervention of a friend that he finally made a decisive choice for his future: “A friend one day gave me the telephone number of Cours Florent”. And in the face of Nowhere else to complete: “I went to Paris driving an army truck. When they saw me arriving, the apprentice actors thought it was a raid to nab all the guys who hadn’t done their military service. They were scared, it was very funny…”. And to remember: “From that first class, I knew I was made for this job!”.
But, once this decision was made, the unforgettable Serge Benhamou in The Truth if I lie nevertheless had a journey strewn with pitfalls. “Ten years of struggle, not being able to get paid for the work. I did tons of internships, I learned my job for seven/eight years”he said on the set of Good morningthe TF1 morning show in April 2024. And José Garcia concludes: “We were lucky enough to have the possibility of having internships already prepaid by Pôle Emploi, so between the little plays we performed, I did lots of things: comedia dell’arte, stunt training, circus school…”.
