Despite the gigantic production and the casting of French star actors, movie director and actor Alain Chabat had the animals working like real actors.
Alain Chabat’s love for animals is quite known. In one of his previous movies, called “Didier”, he had slipped into the skin of a dog to entertain us. And now he does it again with Mission Cléopâtre.
Mission Cléopâtre will certainly be one of the most important movies in 2002 for the French filming industry. Directed by Alain Chabat, the dream casting will remind everybody of the spirit of Les NULS – the TV program which made him famous in the late 80’s and early 90’s – with a bonus, the gracefulness of Monica Belluci in the role of Cléopâtre. To play alongside with Gérard Depardieu (Christopher Columbus, Cyrano de Bergerac), Christian Clavier (The Visitors), Jamel, Claude Rich, Alain Chabat has also carefully chosen a team of four legged actors, whose talent was incredible from the first to the last of the shooting. To have little dog Idefix bark on command, to have the cat meow on the lap of the Cléopâtre’s taster, or to lead a 2 years old cheetah in the throne room, in the middle of the half naked courtesans, Alain Chabat asked the best professionals to work on the set: they were Patrick Pitavino for the dogs, Rita de Tauzia for the cats and Thierry le Portier for the fauves.