Accident of Fame [Semi-Open] [Image-Heavy]

(In costume) Hi guys! I am here on the set of Petit Royaume or Rouantelezh Vihan, a show that I serendipitously got cast in! This clip won’t be up until the last episode of me airs! Hope this new adventure goes well!

Hi guys! Caël here! People have been nagging me to discuss and make a video about my uh… thing on TV that aired the previous month. Today I will be answering the questions people had been bombarding me on Twitcher and on my Viedéo.

People were wondering if I appeared in the Interflix series Petit Royaume. Petit Royaume is a Bethanian-language period drama which is also being aired by Saintonge Télévisions (STV) over at STV 7, its cultural channel. Its original Bethanian title is Rouantelezh Vihan, and the dialogue is in Bethanian. For STV purposes, it is subtitled in Santonian.

When it was aired last month, I was inundated by messages asking me if it was me who played who played Fañch, Count of Lanester, in Petit Royaume.

The answer is, yes, it was me that you saw on TV. Heh, the chatbox is blowing up…!

@amala_aries says in all caps NEPOTISM!!!

Hahahaha, kinda. You guys know that my uncle helps run Interflix. But it’s not Uncle Thibault that brought me in. Uncle Thibault was even surprised I ended up on one of those Interflix series! It was my dad’s fault!

In the chatbox, @whorepresents asks How did you get the role?

Yes, I am about to get there. It was an accident. I promise! It was not intended. I didn’t want to be an actor – yet! I blame my dad.

You see, my dad has a side hustle as an actor in Bethanian-language theatre. So HunvreGweled, one of Interflix’s studios, was making a period drama set in in 18th century Bethany. They had a casting call in multiple Bethanian cities and were specifically looking for Bethanian-speaking actors. Petit Royaume had an ensemble cast, and the cast list runs in the hundreds. My dad also had a bit role as a monk.

So what happened was, four months ago, they were filming a scene in Mont-Saint-Caël just outside Redon. Two actors unfortunately got sick and dropped out at the last minute. They searched for replacements. This being a big production, a lot of theatre and film people in Redon were already involved, so baseline, there were few other available people. Since everybody else suitable on the set had appeared in episodes that had already been aired, they couldn’t re-cast any of them. They needed new guys. They had an emergency casting call in Redon, looking for two actors to fill those roles.

They were looking for Bethanian-speaking guys in my age range who have some experience in the entertainment industry and was willing to film in front of the camera. My dad called me on the phone and told me to try out the casting call. I guess they were that desperate! They needed two guys!

And there were only three of us there at the final audition. They only needed two, but they got all three of us some roles. They just assigned the roles. I was told that I will be the Count of Lanester. Arthur Couic, the series’ director, told me it was only a bit role and would be just for a few episodes. Little did I know that ‘bit role’ is gonna explode! I think my character appeared in just four episodes.

“I hated you!” says @ambrentendu.

Thank youuuu!! I was initially bothered by the viewers’ hostile reaction, but my dad, the director, and the scriptwriter all told me that it was the mark of a good villain-playing actor to get the audience to hate me. Their words, not mine.

So you see – SPOILER ALERT! – the Count of Lanester was a villainous character in Petit Royaume. In the story, he was the illegitimate son of the Petty King of Bethany. He gets married off to the daughter of the Petty King of Domnonée to seal an alliance between the two kingdoms. He was sent to Domnonée and settled in the town of Douvres, which was the dowry and wedding gift to the couple. The first scene we filmed – and the one where they needed an emergency casting call – was the marriage of the Count of Lanester to Nolwenn, Lady of Douvres, daughter of the Petty King of Domnonée. In character, Nolwenn didn’t even know who was she getting married to until she got to the altar! I guess that also applies to the actor who had to play the groom!

Unfortunately, the character of the Count of Lanester was an abusive pompous b~stard. Literally an example of the nobles that the Santonians revolted against during the Santonian Revolution.

“Was it hard playing such a role?” asks @candide_redon.

Yes! I was not prepared! It felt totally out of character for me. Thank gosh my dad was there coaching me. He was a stage dad, literally! Haha. I felt that the casting director also deliberately chose me for the role for nefarious purposes. During the audition, she told me, “You look like someone who people won’t suspect to be that evil!” I just laughed her comment off. But jeez, the character was that evil. I only knew that they will kill the character off immediately – I didn’t expect they would stretch that wickedness to four episodes!

Says @whine-et-dine on the chatbox, “I think I know the answer to this, what was the most difficult scene to film?”

I only filmed a few scenes! I think I know what you are referring to. It’s my answer too. The r~pe scene. Again – SPOILERS! – the Count of Lanester r~pes his new wife the day after their wedding. That scene was so difficult to do. And before you ask! NO! There was no real s~x involved! It was simulated, they got creative with the camera angles and the lighting and the sheets and stuff.

Although I gotta say, everything I did was difficult to some degree. Like the Count’s cruelty to his subjects. The scene where the Count of Lanester whips his servants… ugh, that was difficult too. That wasn’t fake. I really had to hit my fellow actors. They were cool with it. It needed two takes. Nolan, the actor who played the servant, told me after the first take: “Don’t fake it. Hit me for real. Or else we’ll be retaking this scene over and over. Instead of just one big hit, you’ll have to hit me multiple times if we keep on re-taking. Do it and get it over with.” Thank gosh Arthur was satisfied after the second take.

Another scene was when the Count of Lanester screams obscenities inside the Cathedral of Douvres. He was trying to display dominance over the Bishop of Douvres. As a good catholique boy, it was challenging for me to yell cuss words at a priest inside a church!

@counterlife asks “To the opposite, what was the easiest scene?”

The death scene, haha! Was so easy, just lie there, pretend to be dead. The preceding scene was difficult, but the end was fun.

“You deserved to die!” says @ambrentendu.

Awww, still hating on me? Whyyy? It’s not me, it’s just a character! I’m not like that in real life, I promise!

Anyway – MORE SPOILERS – the Countess of Douvres manages to kill the Count of Douvres after another drunken attempt to r~pe her. Like in the other scenes, a lot of the hitting, action, and others weren’t fake. Gaëlle Le Coz, who plays Nolwenn, didn’t hold back! I had bruises and scratches afterward! She slammed me around the room and threw things at me. She smashed that prop vase on my head. She tore out some of my hair.

Afterwards, Gaëlle apologised for the violence but the director was happy at the result. We did not have to do a lot of retakes for that sequence. Gosh, I’d be so battered if there were a lot of retakes! So Gaëlle and I did our best to avoid re-takes!

The most challenging part of that scene was when Nolwenn slaps Fañch’s corpse to confirm that he was dead. And me, being dead, MUST NOT react. Not even a flinch. Man, it was hard not to react to a slap!

“How was the experience?” asks @elisabethany in the chat.

Not gonna do it again! Haha. Just kidding. If I’m gonna act again, I hope it won’t be those evil characters again! To this day I am still getting angry comments on my social media pages!

Aside from those, the support and feedback I got was so amazing, I might be encouraged to audition next time!

“Why didn’t you tell us you landed a role in a TV series?” asks @finbar_rabnif in the chat.

I was made to sign an agreement that I can’t talk about my roles and spoilers until after the scene had aired on STV. So I could only talk about it now! But I filmed this video’s intro segment on the first scene’s set after I got the role!

Also, you guys figured it out quick anyway! There were lots of folks posting gifs of “Caël’s Evil Twin” and tagging my Twitcher account! And then there’s the “Slap to confirm death” meme! Sooo mean!! Haha, just kidding.

@furnesss says in the chatbox, “It didn’t look like it was your first role…”

Thank you for the compliment, @furnesss, but this really was my first big acting gig.

“… did you have training on acting?”

No, I did not have formal acting training. Even though my dad was a theatre actor, I wasn’t a theatre kid. My only sorta training was that my parents enrolled me in an acting workshop as a summer class during middle school – that’s it. It was mostly on-the-fly coaching from my dad and the director. Katell, the casting director, also helped me much.

“What is the best tip you got?” asks @ryan_c.

There’s this one thing that I learned from my dad and the venerable Gabriel-Gaël Guermeur, who played the Bishop of Douvres. Something they called “character separation”.

The scene was the Count and Countess of Douvres were attending a private Mass officiated by the Bishop of Douvres. The bishop delivered a homily that was a veiled attack at the Count’s behaviour, and so the Count became angry. The script had it that the Count interrupted the Mass and threw a tantrum. Like I said earlier, as a good catholique boy, it was hard for me to do that. I had difficulty spewing obscenities and screaming insults while at Mass inside the cathedral. It was embarrassing as they had to re-take because of me!

During the break, Monsieur Guermeur took me aside and told me that I am not my character. At that moment while filming, it was not Caël Boënnec who was there, but Count Fañch of Lanester. It won’t be Caël who is shouting and making a scandal, but Fañch. “Like a demonic possession?” I asked Monsieur Guermeur. He laughed at my analogy.

It might sound like schizophrenic, but being the geek that I am, I think the better analogy would be familiar to tabletop gamers and roleplayers: “In-Character” vs “Out-of-Character” separation. Your character in the game isn’t necessarily reflecting of you as a person. Being able to separate the two is a critical and basic skill in these activities. Hence you might hear me saying that the bad guy you saw on TV was not me!

Having some sort of experience with roleplaying and tabletop gaming, I think that might have helped me separate myself from Fañch. My dad and Katell helped me de-role afterwards. I don’t want to bring Fañch home with me, Gaëlle said he was terrifying!

@l_archer asks “Do you have any other acting projects?”

No, I don’t have any coming up. Acting is not my main career… yet! I’ll stick to making Viedéos and explainer videos for now. But I’d be happy to pick up any casting calls!

Alright, I think that's it! If you’re still with me, thank you very much for listening! If you like my content, please subscribe to my channel. I very much appreciate it!

Caël (amusingly his character has the same name) was the son of a rich, widely-hated, cutthroat industrialist in Béthanie named Ronan. (Incidentally played by Caël’s real-life father too!) Ronan was a single father to his only son Caël, a college student. Ronan and Caël were polar opposites: Ronan was ruthless, heartless, and greedy; Caël was polite, kind, and generous. With Ronan being an absentee father and Caël loathing his father’s behaviour, their relationship was distant and perfunctory.

After volunteering at an orphanage’s charity event, Caël gets kidnapped by a group of left-wing Picardists. (Hence the screengrab.) They demanded a ransom from Ronan, which Ronan reluctantly pays. The kidnappers then had a second demand: that Ronan show himself to the group, apologise for his mistreatment of workers, and stay in captivity for one month in exchange for Caël. Ronan thought it was too much and pressured the police to act. Not satisfied with Ronan’s response, the kidnappers shot Caël and buried his body in a grave in the forest. The kidnappers pretended that Caël was still alive. The police, unaware that Caël was dead, were still trying to look for him.

The episode then cuts to Lancou, who was watching the news on TV about Caël’s kidnapping when he was interrupted by a distraught Azaëlle. Azaëlle was one of Lancou’s immortal employees; she was a fallen angel who had recently been thrown out of heaven and stripped of most of her angel powers. Azaëlle was disgraced because she had used her angel powers to ‘excessively influence’ and ‘inappropriately meddle’ in the mortal human world. Finding herself on earth, Azaëlle sought refuge with Lancou and his merry band of psychopomps ten years ago.

When Lancou asked Azaëlle why she was upset, Azaëlle revealed her past to Lancou. Azaëlle used to work as a guardian angel, and one of her wards was Caël. Caël was the main reason why Azaëlle lost her powers – she had been excessively protecting Caël and had been his mother figure while he growing up. This explained Caël’s massively different personality from Ronan’s. Caël’s mother died when he was a baby. Caël’s mother went to heaven and met Azaëlle. Azaëlle promised that she would look after Caël. Now Caël was dead and his soul was nowhere to be found.

Azaëlle was on ‘human duties’ (working as a trucker in Lancou’s mortal, on-earth business) at the time that Caël died. She only learned that Caël had died when Titou, the guy on ‘immortal duties’ (ferrying souls to heaven or hell) told her that he had ferried Caël’s soul to heaven but was rejected by Saint Peter because Caël’s name was not on “The Book”. Hell did not accept Caël either: Satan wanted Ronan, not Caël. Caël returned to earth as a lost, wandering spirit. Azaëlle wanted Lancou to help her former ward and bring justice to him. First, they must find Caël’s soul.

Lancou, Azaëlle, and Titou went to the place where Titou fetched Caël’s soul – the grave in the forest. Lancou devised a way to get the police and Morvan’s crime scene investigators to easily find Caël’s grave by leaving clues leading to the place.

Afterwards, the three psychopomps searched for Caël’s wandering soul. They found Caël, sad and crying, inside the home of his girlfriend, Eryl. Eryl, too had been crying and worried about Caël, but they could not communicate, separated by the dimensions of the living and the dead.

Titou assumed his immortal form and appeared to Caël, coaxing him to come outside to the other psychopomps. Caël recognised Azaëlle (his “imaginary friend” from childhood) and had a brief happy reunion moment. Caël asked why Azaëlle was gone for a long time. Azaëlle dodged the question and instead nudged Caël to give Lancou information about his death. Lancou would then feed the information to Tifenn Morvan so his murder could be solved.

The story arc is two episodes long, and S5E11 ends here.

In Episode 12, presumably, Caël had told info about his death to Lancou, who passed it to Morvan. (Whole story is revealed towards the end.) Meanwhile, Caël had two problems: what will happen to Eryl, the love of his life; and why was he stuck on earth.

Lancou told Caël that he was stuck on earth because his name was still not written on “The Book” – meaning it wasn’t his time to die or he had unfinished business. Titou mused that Caël probably had not yet fulfilled his mission: he himself enunciated his unfinished business. Caël asked how he could fulfil it when he’s already dead. Lancou said that sometimes it takes days to years before someone knows. Lancou invited Caël to join them while he was waiting. As he was no immortal, Caël could not assume any form and communicated to the living via Azaëlle. Azaëlle assumed various human forms to send coded messages from Caël to Eryl. Meanwhile, Azaëlle finally told Caël the reason why she disappeared. This made Caël feel guilty, but Azaëlle assured him that she believed her sacrifice was well worth it, given the good change Caël had brought into the world.

Over at SSJML, Tifenn Morvan was under pressure to solve the case, with Ronan being a prominent public figure. Lancou fed Morvan the subtle clues to help her solve the case. This being the premise of the show, Morvan knew where the information was coming from. The police finally locate Caël’s grave and Ronan explodes in fury and anguish.

It then emerged that Caël’s kidnappers were merely posing as a group of left-wing Picardists in order to drain public sympathy away from Ronan. The clues left by Lancou led to the true mastermind of Caël’s kidnapping and murder: Ronan’s gold-digger trophy wife, Lila. Caël not only objected to his father’s relationship with Lila, but Caël was also an obstacle to Lila getting Ronan’s entire wealth. With Caël dead, Lila would inherit Ronan’s estate once she succeeds in killing Ronan. Lila could then live a luxurious life with her beau Efflam, who headed the gang of kidnappers.

Lila was arrested and jailed, and Ronan filed for a dissolution of their marriage. At Caël’s funeral, as tributes came in, Ronan saw that the most valuable part of his life – his son – was gone. Ronan realised the gravity of his mistakes, rued the destructive path in life that he treaded, and resolved right then to become better. He started sponsoring the charity events that Caël used to volunteer in. He became less concerned about profit, and more about the well-being of his workers and the community. He set up charitable foundations and became more active in Church.

Two weeks later, Ronan visited Caël’s grave at the cemetery. Ronan found Eryl crying as she laid flowers on Caël’s grave. Ronan had a vague recollection that she was Caël’s high school sweetheart, whom he disapproved of because her family was not wealthy. Surprised to find Ronan there, Eryl started to leave but Ronan asked her to stay. Ronan and Eryl had an earnest talk. Eryl said that she loved Caël not for his potential wealth, but because of his character and personality. Ronan admitted that he threatened to disinherit Caël if he did not stay away from Eryl, but Caël stood his ground. Eryl said she knew that, that Caël was ready to leave all his riches behind for love. Ronan apologised to Eryl for trying to pry them apart. Ronan hugged Eryl, and then noticed her baby bump. He asked if she was pregnant. Eryl said yes and that she had been planning to tell Caël on the day he disappeared.

Caël’s soul, accompanied by Azaëlle, had been watching his father and girlfriend as they hugged and cried at his grave. Caël’s soul approached them and he hugged them both. After a while, Caël felt an inexplicable force drawing him into Eryl. Throwing an inquisitive glance at Azaëlle, the guardian angel told Caël that he will be reborn in five months – as Eryl’s son. When Caël had gone into Eryl’s body, Eryl felt the baby’s quickening.

While leaving the cemetery, Azaëlle was surprised to see Archangel Michael coming down towards her. Michael told Azaëlle that she was being recalled to heaven and her angel powers would be restored. Michael told Azaëlle that they had to suspend her temporarily because she was interfering too much with God’s will – to make Ronan change his ways, using Caël. Now that Caël had fulfilled his mission regarding Ronan, Caël would have to be reborn to take care of Eryl – and Azaëlle will be the reborn Caël’s guardian angel.