In ‘Lupin,’ Omar Sy Puts a New Twist on a Classic French Tale

In 2011, a star flip within the French blockbuster movie “The Intouchables” propelled Omar Sy to a César award for greatest actor and a budding Hollywood profession, with roles in “X-Males: Days of Future Previous” and “Jurassic World.”

This success made Sy, who was born close to Paris of immigrant mother and father from West Africa, the sort of star whom a powerhouse manufacturing firm like Gaumont would possibly ask about his dream roles.

“If I had been British, I might have mentioned James Bond, however since I’m French, I mentioned Lupin,” Sy mentioned in a latest video name, in French, from his Los Angeles house. “He’s playful, he’s intelligent, he steals, he’s surrounded by girls. Plus, he’s a personality who performs characters. For an actor, he’s the perfect.”

A number of years after that dialog with Gaumont, a five-episode installment of Sy’s new French-language collection, “Lupin,” debuted on Netflix. Lower than per week later, the present, a trendy caper set within the coronary heart of Paris, has change into the streamer’s second hottest title in the USA, the primary time a French collection debuted within the High 10, based on Netflix. A second installment has been filmed and is ready to observe later this yr.

Besides there’s a plot twist: Arsène Lupin shouldn’t be a personality within the collection that bears his identify — a minimum of not within the flesh.

However by now many American readers are most likely questioning “Wait … Lup-who?”

Created by the French author Maurice Leblanc in 1905, Arsène Lupin is an elite member of the gang of pleasant rogues often called gentleman thieves. Like Thomas Crown, Danny Ocean, Simon Templar and (to incorporate a gentlewoman) Selina Kyle, Lupin is elegant and environment friendly. He prefers disguise and persuasion to violence and is so dashing that his victims nearly thank him for the consideration of being robbed.

The hero of many shorts tales and novels, Lupin was first seen because the French reply to a sure British detective; Leblanc even cheekily wrote unauthorized crossover tales starring one Herlock Sholmès. France alone has produced a number of TV variations and flicks concerning the thief. A whole era can nonetheless sing the theme track from the collection that ran in 1971-74. A splashy 2004 movie starred Romain Duris.

Lupin can also be a well-liked character in Japan, the place within the Nineteen Sixties the manga artist Kazuhiko Kato, identified by his pen identify, Monkey Punch, invented a grandson named Lupin III. That Lupin turned the topic of a number of anime variations, together with Hayao Miyazaki’s characteristic debut, “Lupin III: The Fortress of Cagliostro,” and the latest 3-D launch “Lupin III: The First.”

Sy, 42, performs not Lupin however a debonair Parisian named Assane Diop, the son of a Senegalese immigrant, who idolizes the fictional thief. Sy, who can also be credited as an inventive producer, acknowledged that when he first proposed basing a undertaking on Lupin, he was largely accustomed to the character’s popularity.

“Truthfully, it was simply one thing you needed to know, part of tradition,” he mentioned. “In a while, I linked the dots between the books, the TV reveals I noticed as a child, and a few mangas. I turned completely addicted by engaged on ‘Lupin.’”

George Kay (“Felony”), the present’s British creator and showrunner, mentioned in a video chat that he had been extra accustomed to different turn-of-the-Twentieth-century popular culture creations like Sherlock Holmes, the Scarlet Pimpernel or A.J. Raffles when he was introduced on.

“However after I was instructed that Netflix needed to do it with Omar Sy, he was hooked up, the mix of these two issues made it actually fascinating to me,” Kay mentioned. “As a result of there’s heaps about Lupin I really like: the tips, the cons.”

The French filmmaker Louis Leterrier (“The Transporter,” “The Darkish Crystal: Age of Resistance”), who directed the primary three episodes of “Lupin,” was an early member of the inventive workforce, from earlier than the thought was delivered to Netflix. (The collection was produced by Gaumont for Netflix.) He mentioned that it took a short time to zero in on an idea.

“Our first step was to determine the place we needed to go,” Leterrier mentioned in a video name. “Does Omar truly play Lupin? Is it up to date or basic?”

Finally, “George Kay got here in with an thought all of us beloved,” he added. “We needed to see Omar in all his humanity and his expertise with the parable, relatively than name him Arsène Lupin and do one thing that had already been achieved.”

Once we meet Sy’s Assane, he’s obsessive about avenging his widower father (Fargass Assandé), who died 25 years earlier. The elder Diop, who labored arduous to offer his son the instruments he wanted to achieve French society (beginning with the significance of right spelling), dedicated suicide in jail after being accused of theft, leaving younger Assane an orphan. Assane’s most valuable possession turned a Lupin ebook bestowed upon him by his dad, a present that may form his total life. (The collection is subtitled “Within the Shadow of Arsène.”)

Like Leblanc’s rapscallion, the grownup Assane steals and will get out of jams due to his silver tongue and his expertise for shape-shifting. However don’t anticipate any hyper-realistic latex masks à la “Mission: Not possible” — Assane is resolutely low-tech, befitting the collection’s fleet footed, intentionally old school bent.

“Lupin was a eager observer of society and we needed Assane to be the identical,” Sy mentioned. “He doesn’t want a lot to disguise himself: He joins the kind of individuals who don’t get observed, and he disappears.”

When Assane units out to swipe a closely guarded necklace on the Louvre, for instance, he alternates between going undercover as a janitor and passing as a wealthy art-lover attending an public sale. Within the first case, he turns into invisible, a Black man amongst many others; within the second, he exploits the truth that he stands out in a sea of white faces, distracting his marks.

“I favored the ‘gentleman thief’ facet rather a lot however I needed to subvert it and provides it a social angle,” Leterrier mentioned. “I discovered the thought of a 6-foot-2 Black man sneaking round in each excessive society and the underworld fascinating.”

Kay jumped on the chance to slide in statements with out being heavy-handed. “Having a French-African ethnic lead is essential,” he mentioned. “The character’s targets are the French institution and the old-fashioned, and we’re enjoying these dramas out in these very basic Parisian settings.”

Certainly, Assane could be very conscious of how conventional French society perceives him, and he typically makes use of these prejudices to hoodwink his victims. The present additionally sends a sly message by having essentially the most devoted followers of the Lupin books be of African and North African descent, or biracial.

For Sy, “it’s about placing a brand new face on what it means to be French right now,” he mentioned. “The archetype has modified.”

Whether or not cultural or familial, the thought of transmission runs all through the present. For followers of the unique tales, Easter eggs abound. On a extra intimate degree, Assane inherits the Lupin obsession from his father. He then passes it on to his personal teenage son, Raoul (Etan Simon), whose mom is white, as a solution to join and clean out a typically rocky relationship.

“It’s the primary time I play this type of father, who has a number of baggage and questions,” mentioned Sy, who himself has 5 youngsters. “I’m at all times curious about fatherhood. It’s not simple, and also you don’t know whether or not you had been an excellent dad or a nasty one till your youngsters are grown up.”

For Sy, Leblanc’s previous tales function a sort of bridge throughout the collection. The Lupin ebook helps Assane relate not solely to his father but in addition to his environment, and Assane desires it to have the identical influence on Raoul. Tradition, like household, is a method of belonging.

“The thought of inheritance strikes me — what will we retain and what will we cross on?” he mentioned “For me that’s the true that means of life, what makes us human.”