La Maison star admits one key thing 'really bored' him on Apple's fashionable French drama

La Maison’s star Lambert Wilson confessed his character's costumes in the French drama “really bored” him, despite the Apple TV+ series being all about fashion.

Lambert, known by English-speaking audiences for his role as the Merovingian in The Matrix franchise, as well as Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, spoke exclusively to Express.co.uk about the riveting new drama, hitting screens on Friday.

The first two episodes kick off when Lambert’s Vincent Ledu, a legendary Parisian fashion designer, is thrown into the midst of a major media scandal.

When he’s “cancelled” by social media after disgracing his brand, newcomer Paloma Castel (played by Zita Hanrot) promises to propel the Ledu fashion house into the 21st century.

Meanwhile, Vincent’s team and family, including his long-time muse Perle Foster (Amira Casar), are left to decide where their true loyalties lie.

Despite playing one of the most stylish men in Paris, Lambert admitted he quickly grew bored of Vincent’s standard outfit of choice.

“I like discussing the principle and then the detail bores me,” he told us.

“The principle was I was going to be dressed in black and it was going to be a little bit more Japanese than classicly French.

“I loved that, that’s going to be the angle that helps me as an actor. And then the detail really bores me.”

Throughout the series, Vincent is most commonly seen decked out in all-black garb while his collaborators and rivals don elegant, trendy and daring ensembles.

This includes young fashionista Paloma, Vincent’s nephews Victor (Pierre Deladonchamps) and Robinson Ledu (Antoine Reinartz), who couldn’t be less alike if they tried, and his obsessive fashion rival Diane Rovel (Carole Bouquet).

Meanwhile, for Vincent: “I tried 150 black t-shirts and 170 black sweaters and 400 black trousers. It was like, ‘Okay, whatever, whatever’, you know?”

Lambert’s co-star Amira chimed in: “You’ve got to be really precise with the collars, you know?

“These are people who look at detail in infinite details so you’ve got to go into it. I love going into detail, personally.”

“When you go into your dressing room and every day for six months you have black clothes?” Lambert continued. “You think, ‘Can I just have a t-shirt, like just a little something different? A pair of socks?’

Amira quipped: “It was your underwear, wasn’t it? You had pink underwear didn’t you?”

Lambert laughed and added: “It was violently coloured.”

While La Maison’s leading man quickly tired of Vincent’s style of choice, his co-stars Antoine and Zita loved getting stuck into some more adventurous designs.

“We need women like [Paloma in the fashion industry],” Zita said. “She has strong beliefs on politics, on ecological, environment [issues]. Fashion needs people like her to be really frank.

“Because she has a new way to see women’s bodies, you know? I think it’s really important. A lot of young designers, for example Marine Serre, a French designer, did that. Changed the code of fashion.

“But, at the end, it’s going to be really difficult for her. Because she’s going to try and find that balance between economics and what she fights for. It’s a struggle for her.”

And Antoine revealed he initially revealed he had a totally different idea for how Robinson should dress. “For my part, I wanted somebody like Julien Dossena or Nicolas Di Felice, real designers who are very low-profile,” he explained.

“They create amazing things but, in life, they’re just in the same jeans every day, a t-shirt and that’s all. But actually, they wanted somebody who was more frustrated. He puts a lot of himself in his clothes, so I have three colours every day in each outfit I wear.

“It was difficult to feel myself in it, so it was a long way towards Robinson’s style, to appropriate that.”

Expect high fashion and scandals galore when the irresistible new French drama drops this Friday.

La Maison will debut with the first two episodes on Friday, September 20, 2024 on Apple TV+, followed by one episode weekly on Fridays through November 15, 2024.