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Gérard Depardieu gives up alcohol: 'I really no longer like drunkenness'
Gérard Dépardieu, the larger-than-life French star who once boasted that he sometimes drank 14 bottles of wine a day, says he has now given up the booze.
“I haven’t been drinking for some time now. I really no longer like drunkenness,” the 67-year-old, who is currently starring of the new Netflix series Marseille, told le Parisien newspaper.
The revelation surprised many French, who are used to reading regular reports about the actor’s drunken escapades, which include urinating in the aisle of an Air France plane bound for Dublin as it prepared to take off, forcing the aircraft to turn back.
In another notorious incident, the actor, who shot to fame in Britain for his role in the 1990 romantic comedy Green Card alongside Andie MacDowell, turned up drunk at a solemn First World War commemoration and shouted obscenities.
Depardieu was also arrested in November 2012 for driving while intoxicated after he fell off his motorbike.
Two years ago he told an interviewer that he drank excessively whenever he was bored.
“I can’t drink like a normal person. I can absorb 12, 13, 14 bottles a day, but I’m never totally drunk. All you need is a 10-minute nap and voilà, a slurp of rosé and I feel as fresh as a daisy,” he said.
Depardieu was granted Russian citizenship in 2013 by President Vladimir Putin after he publicly criticised French President François Hollande's plans to raise taxes to 75 percent for some high earners.
The actor accused the French government of punishing "success, creation and talent."
In his interview on Friday with Le Parisien, the actor again praised the Russian leader, and said that Mr Putin “gives me lessons in geopolitics.”
“I have a very particular relation with him. We meet, with an interpreter, and we talk a lot,” he said.
Depardieu is currently working on a film project in which he will play Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator whose regime of terror caused the death and suffering of tens of millions.
The film, whose working title is Le divan de Staline (Stalin's Sofa), is directed by French actress Fanny Ardant and is based on French author Jean-Daniel Baltassat's 2013 novel of the same name.