Teacher who ran school outside Paris was a formative influence on generations of comedians and actors including Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson
Master clown Philippe Gaulier, the influential founder of France’s École Philippe Gaulier, has died aged 82. Gaulier taught the art of clowning for decades and his students included Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Rachel Weisz and Geoffrey Rush.
Gaulier died on Monday due to complications from a lung infection. He had a stroke in 2023 and, since then, had “received warm words of encouragement from all over the world”, according to a statement made by his family. “He seemed especially happy to receive letters and messages from his former students. Teaching was his passion and purpose in life.”
Famous for a brutally honest teaching style, Gaulier founded his school, now based in Étampes outside Paris, in 1980, after studying under Jacques Lecoq. There he taught aspiring performers on a first-come first-served basis without auditions, encouraging each student to “find your idiot”. He would make new students wear red clown noses, saying: “When a student puts one on, I see better how he was when he was a child.”
He was known for giving merciless tongue-lashings during classes. “I had moments of extreme suffering there,” comedian Phil Burgers, better known for his stage persona, silent clown Doctor Brown, once told the Guardian. “It’s really, really hard. But once you can handle the insults, something inside you cracks and you can begin.” Like Burgers, many who attended the school went on to achieve success at the Edinburgh fringe and other comedy festivals.
