Paris: Gad Elmaleh has been one of the most famous Jews in France’s entertainment industry over the past two decades announced his conversion to the Catholic faith, a process in which he says the Virgin Mary played a crucial role.
On Monday, the actor revealed during a television interview promoting his new autobiographic film “Reste un peu” (“Stay a While”) that he is converting to Catholicism.
The new film, which is due to premiere in France next week, features Elmaleh’s actual mother and father, Regine and David, portraying themselves. His parents are not too happy about his decision but decided to “support me anyway,” he said on France 2’s “Quelle Epoque” talk show.
He explained his conversion, saying the “Virgin Marie took me under her wing.”
The son of Moroccan immigrants, who has often referenced his Jewish identity in his wildly-successful sketches, has been nominated for a Cesar award, the French equivalent of an Oscar, and he has crossed over into the American comedy landscape.
Elmaleh, 51, was the partner of Charlotte Casiraghi, the daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco, with whom they have a son named Rafael.
His conversion to Catholicism is depicted in his film, “Reste un peu,” (“Stay a while”).
The Jewish actor, who according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo will take the name of Jean-Marie when he is baptized, has studied theology in Paris, and in 2019 he participated in a musical in London about St. Bernadette Soubirous, the visionary who saw Our Lady of Lourdes.
Elmaleh told the French newspaper Le Figaro that “the Virgin Mary is my most beautiful love” and expressed his surprise that in France the “vast majority of Catholics don’t live their faith openly.”
As a child, he recounted in the interview, he entered a church and saw an image of the Mother of God.
“It wasn’t a vision, just a simple statue, but I was petrified. I began to cry and hid for fear of being discovered by my family, for fear of curses and superstition. I kept it a secret for my entire childhood,” he recalled.
His film “Reste un peu,” which will open in France Nov. 16.
The actor and humorist said that “it’s true that it’s a spiritual, religious coming out. There’s a lot of mixture of fiction and reality,” but “it’s true that I question myself at the age of 50.”
“It’s a search in which I ask myself where, who, when, there’s a God, there is no God,” he said, but he affirms that “the Virgin Mary calls me and protects me.”
In the interview, Elmaleh recounted that he saw an image of the Mother of God “when I was a boy in Morocco, in Casablanca, where there were Christians, Jews, Muslims, a country that’s an example of incredible fraternity; but at the same time a certain taboo with Christianity and the churches.”
“I couldn’t go into the churches because it was a sin, it was prohibited; but when I was 6 or 7 years old, I entered one and said to myself, ‘It’s not bad here, why do they prohibit me?’” the actor said.
Elmaleh said he hopes the film engenders “some questioning” in people who see it and stressed that it is “mainly [a] testimony, a love story."