![From Aznavour To Addiction: Tahar Rahim on Transformation, AI, & The Cost Of Authenticity [Marrakech]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/04170355/MEYDENE_TAHAR-RAHIM_%C2%A9JM-VIGNERES-FIFM-2025-32-1.jpg "From Aznavour To Addiction: Tahar Rahim on Transformation, AI, & The Cost Of Authenticity [Marrakech]")
MARRAKECH — Tahar Rahim speaks about extreme physical transformation with the same casual ease most actors reserve for discussing their favorite craft services snacks.
It’s early December 2025, and the French actor is at La Mamounia holding court during the Marrakech International Film Festival, fresh off his Cannes film, Julia Ducournau’s “Alpha,” which earned an 11-minute standing ovation at the fest.
Rahim lost 20KG for his role as a drug addict in “Alpha,” after spending 2024 learning to sing like Charles Aznavour in “Monsieur Aznavour”—a dramatic demonstration of range from an actor who has previously transformed into serial killer Charles Sobhraj for “The Serpent” and portrayed Napoleon’s confidant in Ridley Scott’s epic.
“I felt like he was a member of my family somehow, like sort of a cousin from somewhere,” Rahim says of Aznavour, the legendary French-Armenian crooner he portrayed in “Monsieur Aznavour.” “It wasn’t just for me but for the entire country because his music was here with us since day one. Even if you don’t know who he is, when you were a kid, you got in a cab, you heard it. A bar, a celebration, a wedding—wherever it was, it felt like he was with us all the time.”
That cultural omnipresence made taking on the role both inevitable and terrifying. Rahim initially almost declined, concerned about reducing an icon to mere imitation. “I was really scared about the physicality of it, the technical stuff,” he admits. “I almost said no because I couldn’t feel anything connected to the character at first. But then I couldn’t resist the challenge, the risk.”
What convinced him was finding unexpected common ground. “I’m a son of immigration as well,” Rahim explains. “What we had in common was the commitment, the obligation, the will to be on the frontiers, trying to master different languages.” This connection became the foundation for a performance that required six months of intensive preparation—six hours a day of vocal training, piano lessons, and studying Aznavour’s distinctive physicality.
“I had to match the exact weight, the same shape,” he recalls. “The way he would walk, the way he talks, the way he moves. His posture—he had elbows out and shoulders up.” But more than physical mimicry, Rahim sought psychological truth. “I always enter a role through the physical. There was a total composition to achieve.”
The singing wasn’t part of the original plan. “We had a vocal mind double initially hired to do the singing,” Rahim reveals. “But when I was working with my coach, she told me, ‘You’re capable, just try.’ I wanted to sing so we can see and feel that it’s for real.” The gamble paid off. “At the end of shooting, the director said, ‘Listen, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is you did well, so you have to record everything again in the studio.’” He laughs. “I spent six hours a week for six months before shooting, during shooting, and then we went to the studio.”
For the highest notes, even his commitment had limits. “I couldn’t match his voice—you can hear it, it’s me, I’m not him. But it was too far away, so they mixed his voice with mine in the highest ranges.”
If “Monsieur Aznavour” represented meticulous construction of an icon, then “Alpha” demanded something far more visceral. Ducournau’s film required Rahim to lose 20 kilos to portray Amine, a drug addict dying of a mysterious disease. He volunteered with an association called Gaia that helps marginalized people suffering from addiction, observing users during their “rituals” to understand not just the physical manifestations but the psychological architecture of addiction.
“It’s funny—it’s way harder to get into a character than to get out of it,” he says. “The recovery physically was hard, but it’s not a real problem for me to get out of the character.”
The bond with co-star Golshifteh Farahani, who plays the mother in “Alpha,” emerged organically. “Sometimes you have thousands of questions when you have to work with an actor,” he says. “But when we first met, it just felt in the right place. When you feel the magic happens, don’t ask questions, just embrace it.”
This commitment to what’s “real” makes his thoughts on artificial intelligence particularly revealing. In an industry rapidly embracing AI for everything from de-aging actors to creating synthetic performances, Rahim has drawn a clear line.
“When you’re a director dying to make your movie, and you don’t have enough money, and someone says, ‘If we use AI here, it’ll be a lot cheaper’—if a director chooses to use AI for that, what can I tell you? Who am I to say, ‘Oh no, you’re using AI, I’m not working with you?’”
He pauses carefully. “I’m scared of it. I understand how useful it is in terms of information, research—it’s very helpful, very fascinating. It goes everywhere instantly and brings you back information you wouldn’t have at all, or would get only after spending months in a library. It’s very hard not to be seduced.” His conclusion is pragmatic but wary: “We have to accept it somehow. It’s the future, it’s going to happen. But I’ve got a lot of hope. People want to see real people. I don’t think that will disappear.”
Now firmly established in both French and international cinema—from Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet” to “The Serpent” to Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon”—he is open to continuing to work across different languages and industries. “I’ve worked with many different languages—English, Armenian, some Gaelic,” he says. “That’s what I’m seeking. Jumping from one universe to another, one industry to another, one country to another—if I can keep going this way, I’ll be happy.”
The conversation turns to his upcoming role in a new adaptation of “Les Misérables” set for release in 2026. “It’s become like a cultural thing back in France to do this movie every 40 years,” he says. “What we’ve tried is to bring a certain vision which could be different than the other ones.” He suggests a darker, more contemporary approach. “We started with the end. My question was, nowadays, we can’t really buy the romantic idea of someone who commits suicide. We’ve got to explain this now. Everything is rooted in realism.”
This obsession with psychological truth circles back to a story about meeting Aznavour—or almost meeting him. “I’m very close to his son-in-law, a very close friend of mine. He was like, ‘Yeah, come on, let’s talk with him.’ But Aznavour was tired. I mean, it was like a boxing match. I said, ‘Leave him alone, we’ll catch up later. I’d better come and visit and have a coffee with him when he’s at his best.’”
But earlier that evening, Rahim had witnessed something that would inform his entire approach. “I was at his show, and I was like, wow, how is it even possible at this age to be able to perform like this? And he was so truthful with the audience. He forgot the lyrics, and he was like, ‘You’ll see when you reach my age, it happens. Now if you can sing it with me, I’ll get back to it.’ It was so real, so charming. I felt like I was not an audience member, but I was with him, witnessing something that’s usually private.”
He continues: “He used to do something very thoughtful for the audience. He would never ever wear a sign of wealth—no watches, no brands, nothing. Usually black clothes. I think it’s great,at so you feel, from wherever, from whichever social class you’re from, you feel at home.”
This attention to small gestures—the absence of a watch, the willingness to admit forgetting lyrics—separates impersonation from inhabitation. It’s the difference between AI-generated precision and human truth.
As evening settles over the gardens of La Mamounia, Rahim reflects. “We’ll have to deal with AI, let’s face it,” he says. “If you want to fight against something that’s already here and will get bigger and bigger, we’ve got to be cleverer than that. Let’s try to control it rather than the other way around.”
But for now, with two of the most demanding performances of his career behind him, Rahim’s faith remains with the analog, the embodied, the real. “I’m not a singer,” he says with a laugh. “I’m not capable of doing this again now. When I’m done, I’m done.”
It’s this willingness to push himself to—and past—his limits, to find truth in transformation without losing himself to technical virtuosity, that makes Rahim one of the most compelling actors working today. In an age when technology promises to make anything possible, he’s a reminder that some things—presence, vulnerability, the sweat and strain of becoming someone else—can never be adequately replicated by machines.
