Grégory Fitoussi, ‘Women say that I’ve given them a reason to learn French’

Female fans of Mr Selfridge’s resident heartthrob Grégory Fitoussi aren’t going to let a little thing like a language barrier get in the way of their crush. ‘I get a lot of messages from my women saying that I’ve given them a good reason to learn French’, he laughs when we meet to discuss the third series of the hit show. ‘Just the other day a fan came up to me and said ‘je suis un grande fan!’

In fact, Grégory’s English has become word perfect since winning the role of Henri Leclair in 2013 – thanks to a little help from Breaking Bad. ‘My English wasn’t quite there when I was cast, so to help I used to watch Breaking Bad on the Eurostar, at first with French subtitles and then without’, he explains. And these days he admits that, ‘a lot of people think I’m an English actor putting on the French accent for the part, it’s funny.’

Sadly, just as the Great British public have begun to claim Grégory, 38, as one of our own, we’re going to have to get used to seeing less of him on our screens. Because – and I’m sorry to have to tell you this – the new series of Mr Selfridge will be his last. ‘I will be sad to go, of course’, he says, ‘but I asked them to write my character out. I’ve really enjoyed Mr Selfriedge, but I want to try some different things. I’d like to do something dark, like True Detective. It will be nice to lose the costumes for a while.’

In the meantime, we’re going to see a darker side to Henri, who returns from war with post-traumatic stress. ‘He’s seen a lot of rough things, and he struggles to get back to real life’, says Grégory, but insists that there’s still hope for him and Agnes. ‘Those characters are really deeply in love with each other, so they’re probably going to stick together. Agnes helps him through his bad times.’

In person, Grégory is as handsome as on screen, so we can only speculate what effect it had on the rest of the cast when he co-starred with Brad Pitt on World War Z in 2013. Did their combined attractiveness cause some kind of tear in the fabric of the universe? Grégory’s too modest to say, but reveals that, ‘for me, Brad Pitt is one of the most impressive people I have ever met.’ Did he get starstruck? ‘The only thing I could do was to focus on my job and try to see him just as a great actor, which he is. We talked a lot and he was really helpful on set. He’s as nice as he is talented.’

Watch this space. Mr Selfridge’s loss could be about to become Hollywood’s gain.