In 2019, Cécile Bois agreed to go on an adventure with her eyes closed, for a special issue of Rendez-vous in unknown land. The actress who has played Candice Renoir on France 2 for ten years has thus flown to a particular destination: Quyeras, located in the heart of the Hautes-Alpes. For this second edition of Our unknown lands, devoted to the French regions, Cécile Bois was accompanied by the presenter Raphaël de Casabianca and his partner in the detective series, Raphaël Lenglet.
But the 50-year-old actress does not only keep good memories of this shoot, as she confided to Ciné Télé Revue. “I hate the mountain” she confided, according to comments reported by Télé Loisirs. Evolving at an altitude of 1,800 meters in the snow was “a nightmare”, recognizes Cécile Bois.
In an interview with France Télévisions before the program aired, the star of Candice Renoir confided her childhood trauma, linked to the mountains: “I got lost in the mountains where I was skiing with my parents. Looking for a track, I found myself at the top of a black one, with precipices. I remember the sliding snow, the ravine and the great stress of falling there!”, said Cécile Bois.
However, it was out of the question to back down when learning of the location chosen by the production of Our Unknown Lands: “I really took it as a test to live and, as I was in a state of openness, I I felt ready”, assures the actress. While acknowledging that he found it “disappointing” to often be “the ugly duckling” of the experience because of his reluctance and fears.
The show still allowed Cécile Bois to overcome her anxieties about the mountains. “I finally approached what I wanted to experience and I said to myself that one did not have to go very far, into unknown territory, to exceed one’s limits! (…) I realized that the The spirit is stronger than time”, she assures France Télévisions. She admits despite everything that the presence of the cameras did not make things easier: “Even if we quickly forget it, because the team was very discreet, I could not let myself go. It did not help me in the relationship to the mountain”.
In the Queyras, Cécile Bois and Raphaël Lenglet set out to meet mountain enthusiasts who have chosen to live in harmony with nature, in the heart of the regional natural park. They had notably crossed paths with a couple, guardians of a refuge, an amateur astronomer, a peasant and a musher.
