Rock of Ages: Lunou Zucchini “likes to share the spotlight”

His status as a finalist at Star Académie and the name of his mother, singer Luce Dufault, could open all the doors to him, but Lunou Zucchini is not looking for privileges or glory at all costs.

Rock of Ages: Lunou Zucchini “likes to share the spotlight”

His status as a finalist at Star Académie and the name of his mother, singer Luce Dufault, could open all the doors to him, but Lunou Zucchini is not looking for privileges or glory at all costs. Want to please him? Give him an audition instead of offering him a role on a silver platter.

• To read also: The finalist of Star Académie Eloi Cummings receives the medal of the National Assembly

This is what director Joël Legendre did when he thought that this talented young woman, with whom hundreds of thousands of TVA reality TV fans had just fallen in love, in the spring of 2021, would a good candidate to play Sherrie, one of the main roles in the Quebec adaptation of the Broadway musical, Rock of Ages.

Lunou appreciated. She needs to prove that she deserves her place.

“When I got out of Star Ac, I had an audition for Rock of Ages, but I was also offered something without an audition. I could not. Even in the case of Rock of Ages, I auditioned and I still have doubts about what I can give in this project. So if I'm given a role without an audition, I'm going to worry all along, "says the 26-year-old artist whom Le Journal met in Quebec City two weeks ago.

“I feel like being auditioned, she insists, and if someone else is better than me, it will be up to them.”

So Joël Legendre gave him a nice gift? "Absolutely. I got the validation. It was the best of processes.”

Lunou et Sherrie

In this regard, Lunou Zucchini wants to be the antithesis of her character of Sherrie, a young aspiring actress who, in Rock of Ages, is ready to do anything to achieve her dreams in Los Angeles.

“We may have the same passion in life, but Sherrie is very go-getter. She is not afraid to dare. I have more modesty about that in life (laughs). I don't break down doors. I would like that, but I'm not someone who will push for something even if I really want it. Sherrie says it, whatever she wants."

"I'm sure it could hurt me for some things, but...yeah...it makes me feel uncomfortable doing this. I hate to make my contacts go, I am not capable.

A gang girl

This humility or this integrity (Lunou also sees a slight lack of self-confidence in it) explains in large part why she is in no hurry to record an album with her face featured on the cover.

Lunou prefers team projects. “Right now, I feed on that. When I finished theater school, I had to mourn a group, then there was Star Ac, which was a new group. I always have to focus on projects with people around me, I like it when it's very intense. After the mourning of the Star Ac group, there was Rock of Ages, a new gang that is forming, a new project over several months. It's an extra role, it's not me. It really turns me on a lot, more than telling me that I'm going to make an album, my songs, that it's going to be me, it's going to be Lunou. I like to share the spotlight.”

Separating love from the public

Moreover, if it were up to her, she would even share the love of the public – which she appreciates, do not doubt it – with the whole world.

“Notoriety makes me a little uncomfortable. It's a lot of love that we will not give to a doctor or to someone who is in communication, for example. You, because you make music and you're in the public eye, you get all that love. Sometimes I think it could be separated with other people.

It is this same way of thinking that explains why Lunou is not fond of promoting himself on social networks or reaping the benefits of being a star.

“It annoys me, to advertise. I understand that there are some who do it and have fun, but not me. If I buy something and they offer it to me in exchange for a story, I answer that I will pay for it.

♦ Lunou Zucchini co-starred in Rock of Ages with Rémi Chassé, Jordan Donoghue, Manuel Tadros, Joëlle Lanctôt and Tommy Joubert.

♦ The musical show will be presented from June 28 to July 31 at the Théâtre Capitole de Québec. The production will then stop at the Cogeco Amphitheater in Trois-Rivières, on September 9 and 10, then at the Saint-Denis Theater in Montreal, from October 27 to November 6.

Lunou who sings Soirs de scotch on stage with Luce Dufault, it's not for tomorrow. "I don't want tickets to be sold on the back of our family ties and it becoming Lunou and Luce."

Lunou Zucchini adores her mother and she would love to go on tour with her. Except that she refuses that this wish of the public, if one day it materializes, is only a simple marketing stunt.

She has long resisted the call of an artistic career because she did not want to give reason to those who saw her following in the footsteps of the one who gave birth to her.

"I'm stubborn in life, so when I'm told: ah, you're going to do like your mom, I feel like showing that I won't do that. I choose, so I was in denial for a long time.”

She therefore began studies in the humanities, branched off into nursing before coming to terms with the facts and enrolling at the Sainte-Thérèse Theater School.

“There, I realized that it could not be anything else. Then, at Star Académie, I was like a fish in water.”

"My mother's voice is comforting"

She may be stubborn, Lunou admits that her mother was the trigger for her interest in music. Her first musical thrills, it is to her that Lunou owes them.

“It’s cliché, but my mother’s voice is very comforting. I think it is for a lot of people, but for me it is different. I know all his songs inside and out. She sang them to me so much.

She must also admit that the former headliner of Starmania was a guide for her.

“Living with her, hearing her rehearse, seeing her on stage, your ear is developing. Unconsciously, it is a course that you follow. I did not take singing lessons before going to theater school. I was still 21, but I had ears because I grew up there.

Competing in the Star Académie final, then giving 45 concerts together, is what allowed William Cloutier and Lunou to forge very strong ties.

“We have brotherly love,” says Lunou, speaking of the one who has become a great friend.

As soon as they entered the Academy, in the winter of 2021, the two artists naturally stuck together, she says. “We were the two little ones traumatized from the writing because we were the only ones who did not write in the gang. We winked at each other to show that we understood each other.

Their complicity was transposed on the stage during their joint tour, which ended recently. During the show, they throw flowers at each other and it seems very sincere.

“There is good chemistry. On stage, if there is a bug, we read it in the eyes of the other. We quickly understand what to do. We tell each other everything, without taboos.

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