Jean Dujardin’s Shocking Start: Began Acting Career with a Remake!

The beloved characters Chouchou and Loulou from “Un gars, une fille” graced France 2 in the early 2000s, showcasing Jean Dujardin and Alexandra Lamy’s exceptional comedy talents, which their subsequent careers would further confirm. However, did you know that the version of “Un gars, une fille” we know in France is not originally from there?

A Remake from Which Country?

The credits of the show reveal it was created by Guy A. Lepage, a Quebecois actor who has been writing for television since the late 1980s. In 1997, he starred in a Quebecois series also titled “Un gars, une fille,” which aired that same year. Over the course of 130 episodes and seven seasons, he performed alongside Sylvie Léonard. In Quebec, Guy and Sylvie were the local versions of Chouchou and Loulou.

In Quebec, the show was not made up of short formats but 26-minute episodes consisting of several sketches. The series followed the everyday problems of a couple, portrayed by Guy and Sylvie, with scenarios crafted by a team of writers including Lepage and Léonard themselves.

By 1999, just two years after its debut in Quebec, Lepage decided to franchise the project and adapt it for various countries, including France. The French version kicked off in 1999 and wrapped up in 2002 after four seasons, with Lepage credited as the creator.

As reported by ici.radio-canada, the French production opted for a very short format so that the daily lives of the couple played by Jean and Alexandra could be followed daily by French viewers. It also introduced a pause between sketches to continuously remind viewers of the concept and retained the “blue versus pink” coding from the end credits of the Quebecois version.

Global Export

The series achieved success in France, and Lepage franchised his creation in many other countries including Canada (“A Guy and a Girl”), Bulgaria (“Tia i toi”), Greece (“S’ agapo – M’ agapas”), Russia (“Sasha+Masha”), Serbia (“Andrija i Andjelka”), Turkey (“1 Kadin 1 Erkek”), Hungary (“Brigi és Brúnó”), and Poland (“Kasia i Tomek”).

In each case, the original scripts were preserved and adapted to fit the cultural context of each country.

The Quebec version of “Un gars, une fille” experienced a revival starting in 2023 and is ongoing today, with Guy and Sylvie returning to the delight of viewers. In France, there is no current talk of a possible comeback for the series with Jean Dujardin and Alexandra Lamy, but who knows what the future may hold?