Flagship candidate of the “Drag Race France” show that everyone is talking about at the moment, Paloma, alias Hugo Bardin, will soon appear in season 5 of “Balthazar” on TF1. In a role linked to the character of Tomer Sisley and his child.
From the events of Drag Race France, the French adaptation of the phenomenon RuPaul’s Drag Race, to the film sets of Balthazarthere is only one step for Paloma.
Behind the drag queen who bursts the screen in the show of France tv slash hides Hugo Bardina 31-year-old actor and director who already distinguished himself a few months ago in the TF1 series such a long nightin the role of Stéphanie, and to whom we owe the short film Paloma, recently programmed on France 3 and which inspired her stage alter ego.
In an interview given to Echoes START as part of the promotion of Drag Race France, Hugo Bardin, alias Paloma, who started the theater at the age of four and always wanted to become an actor, explains that he struggled a lot before seeing his life, and his career, change with drag.
“Finally, I was more of a director than an actor for ten years. I struggled, I spent those years putting on shows while having trouble filling theaters. But everything changed when I started. in drag. I can play roles that I didn’t normally have access to. I have a lot more offers as a drag queen comedian, since there aren’t 50,000 of us in France… I’m my own director”.
“That being said, I’m not fooled. There are still a lot of clichés about drag queen”continues the 31-year-old Clermontois at the microphone of our colleagues. “People think that when you’re in drag, you either do it full time or you’re trans or you’re a sex worker. Yes, you can be trans and drag but you don’t always are. Except that in the cinema, the characters I am offered are always a prostitute, a trans, a transvestite”.
Jean Ranobrac – FTV
But fortunately, as Hugo Bardin himself points out, things are finally changing in the right direction for drag comedians. Because in a few months, viewers will be able to find the interpreter of Paloma on TF1, in one of the most popular series of the channel!
Season 5 of Balthazar, which has been filming for several months in the Paris region, will indeed see Hugo Bardin lend his features to a rather unexpected drag character: that of the best friend of the hero embodied by Tomer Sisley.
“I was recently offered a drag role for season 5 of Balthazar”, reveals the actor to Les Echos. “I had my doubts at first, I thought the role would still be full of clichés. I play a new character in French fiction, both Balthazar’s best friend and his daughter’s babysitter.”.
Given the way Season 4 ended – accused of murder, Balthazar fled from the police and reappeared on a club stage, unrecognizable in drag – one can already imagine the circumstances in which the coroner played by Tomer Sisley will meet this new friend who will thus become the babysitter of Balthazar and Maya’s baby (Leslie Medina).
And for Hugo Bardin, such a role, in a series for the general public like Balthazar, has something of the order of a political act: “Staging a drag carrying a baby in her arms is a real political act. We erase the glittery side of the night world that we generally stick to drag. We make a drag queen a person who has a place in the society”.
To discover this new character on screen, see you at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023 on TF1.