Actor: Ioanna Kolliopoulou

Starring our very own Ioanna Kolliopoulou | How Cédric Klapisch juggled making a feature and Covid challenges with shooting series ‘Greek Salad’ in Athens

“It would have been impossible to imagine 20 years ago,” says acclaimed French writer-director Cedric Klapisch of showrunning a TV series based on his feature trilogy that began with Pot Luck in 2002, and was followed by Russian Dolls in 2005 and Chinese Puzzle in 2013.

“When I made Pot Luck I never thought I’d make a sequel,” he says. “I never imagined it would become the work of a lifetime.”

Greek Salad is an eight-episode spin-off produced by Klapisch and Bruno Levy’s Ce Qui Me Meut for Amazon France.

Pot Luck starred a then-unknown Audrey Tautou, Romain Duris, Kelly Reilly and Cécile De France. While Duris, Reilly and De France return for small roles in the series, Greek Salad zooms in on their children and a fresh generation of young twentysomethings trying to make sense of their lives. They are living in Athens all squatting together in a crowded apartment building.

During the shoot in the Greek capital in 2022, the ensemble cast of newcomers led by Aliocha Schneider, Megan Northam, Aggy K. Adams, Amir Baylly and Fotinì Peluso – all lived in the same Athens building for six months just like their characters.

To achieve the right tone, Klapisch brought five young screenwriters, aged between 26 and 30, on to the project –  Agnès Hurstel, Paul Madillo, Thomas Colineau, Eugène Riousse and Charlotte de Givry – and created a US-style writers’ room.

“It was fundamental that I work with people from a different generation than me,” he says. “I worked for more than two years with them and it was so interesting to see just how differently they see the world. I hadn’t realised how much I’d aged until I saw just how much their way of thinking is so disparate.

“The idea of what constitutes success isn’t the same for today’s generation,” he continues. “They want to build a more positive world that isn’t in opposition to their own values. In the ‘80s and ’90s, success meant money. Today, people are conscious of the fact that money can’t buy happiness so to be successful in life means to succeed at having a good quality of life.”

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Rebecca Leffler (2023) How Cédric Klapisch juggled making a feature and Covid challenges with shooting series ‘Greek Salad’ in Athens. SCREENDAILY