Series / Dix pour cent

Dix pour cent ("Ten Percent", renamed Call My Agent! abroad) is a French comedy series that began airing in 2015 on France 2, although Netflix now owns the distribution rights in most countries. It centers on talent agents Andrea Martel, Mathias Barneville, Gabriel Sarda and Arlette Azémar, along with their assistants Camille Valentini, Hervé André-Jezak and Noémie Leclerc, and receptionist Sofia Leprince, in the agency ASK (Agence Samuel Kerr). The series follows their adventures as they manage the careers, whims and problems of their protégés in exchange for ten percent of their earnings (hence the French title of the series). The first episode ends with the abrupt death of their boss, which puts the agency in jeopardy.

The series is notable for having famous guest stars playing fictional version of themselves as the talents managed by ASK. Expect lot of self-parody and jokes about French cinema and the entertainment industry in general.

Dix Pour Cent was originally set to conclude with its fourth season, which aired in the fall of 2020; however, a few months later, a spinoff feature-length film as well as a follow-up fifth season were announced. (As of late 2023, it seems like the film is finally set to go into production.)

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Dix pour cent provides examples of:

• Actor Allusion: Happens a lot. For instance, when JoeyStarr runs after a paparazzo in anger, Andréa admonishes him to think about his probation (referring to the real-life justice problems of the actor due to his well-known Hair-Trigger Temper).
  Joey Starr: [to Julie Gayet] Are you seeing someone these days? ^note In real life, Julie Gayet is the well-known lover/companion of the former French President François Hollande
• Adam Westing: This is essentially the crux of the show. The main clients of ASK are played by famous actors playing themselves.
• An Aesop: An episode in season 3 has the message on coercion and sexual harassment are far too common in the acting world and something needs to be done about it. In this episode, a director tries to force actress Béatrice Dalle to be naked in a scene. Also in this episode, Sofia meets with another director who is simply hitting on her under the pretense of offering her a role.
• And Starring: The credits to each episode have a "With the special participation of" whatever star/s is/are Adam Westing in that episode.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Sandrine Kiberlain becomes bored easily and cycles through hobbies in a matter of days.
• Bad "Bad Acting": How Nathalie Baye^note four times winner of a best actress César award tries to fail her casting interview and get herself out of a movie project with her daughter.
• Bad Luck Charm: As Camille discovers, offering something green to actors is bad luck.
• Banana Peel: In Season 4 premiere, Charlotte Gainsbourg desperately wants to get out of a terrible film project, but the director, Oscar Rondo, is a childhood friend. She fakes a broken leg, and, when asked how she broke the leg, sees a banana peel carelessly tossed on her floor. She claims that she slipped on a banana peel, but soon confesses the truth. An upset Oscar stalks out, she chases after him—and she falls on the banana peel for real and breaks her leg for real.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: In-Universe, Sofia and Julien Doré's film The Orgasm of the Ocean becomes infamous for its explicit content.
• Blackmail: Starmédia backs off from buying out ASK thanks to Arlette blackmailing their CEO.
  Arlette: It is a threat, not slander. Slander is when you don't have proof.
• Bittersweet Ending: The final season ends with ASK closing its doors for good, but with all of the agents having promising future prospects. Specifically, Camille decides to start her own agency with help from her father and Arlette; Mathias and Noémie move into film production; Gabriel goes to work for Star Média (but insists he'll be a spy for Camille's agency); Sofia and Hervé pursue their promising acting careers, and Andrea...gets a bit of rest.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: ASK as a whole, but especially Arlette, who openly smokes pot, carries her dog everywhere, heavily relies on Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior! and still manages to be The Man Behind the Man for the entire agency.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes": Gabriel has wound up booking Isabelle Huppert for two different movies filming on the same night. He feeds the producers of the American film a load of BS about how Isabelle's son is getting married and how family is important, hoping that the Americans will give her the night off. The American woman says "Yes—but no," and then says that Isabelle has to come to work.
• Casting Couch: Discussed in the episode centered around Juliette Binoche who tries to fend off a powerful producer.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Season 1 Andréa is more hotheaded and impulsive than she would end up being. In Season 2, she's still an aggressive go-getter, but her characterization starts revolving more around her workaholism, and she shows an ability for manipulation and canny tactics that is nearly on level with that of Mathias. Some of the traits that were dropped from Andréa's character were later applied to Hicham, who is introduced in Season 2.
  • Noémie comes across as being rather stuck-up and prissy in the early episodes. When she began to get more screen time and her relationship with Mathias was explored in more detail, these traits fell by the wayside, while her emotional, neurotic nature and Cloudcuckoolander tendencies were emphasized. She also gained a previously-unknown interest in eastern philosophies.
• Chekhov's Gunman: This anonymous woman that Andréa rejects on a dating website? She turns out to be Colette, the fiscal inspector in charge of ASK tax audit two episodes later.
• Contrived Coincidence: For a big city, the characters run into each other in the most inopportune places. The woman Andréa blows off on a dating site? The accountant scheduled to audit her agency. The office Andréa and Gabriel scout when they consider leaving ASK? Same street as Guy Marchand's psychic. Etcetera.
• Corner of Woe: Following his separation from Sofia, Gabriel retreats into his office, closes all of the blinds and apparently does little apart from gorging himself on his can of whipped cream. His professional performance winds up suffering so much that Hicham finds it necessary to monitor his work.
• Cringe Comedy: In the end, all of Gabriel's machinations are not enough to keep Sandrine Kiberlain from taking the mic in a stand-up comedy club... leading to an excruciating five minutes of her absolutely bombing.
• A Day in the Limelight: Most episodes center one agent over the others, largely because it's their In-Universe client who is Adam Westing. The agent/client breakdown is, for reference, as follows:
  • Andréa: Françoise Fabian, JoeyStarr, François Berléand, Juliette Binoche, Jean Dujardin, Béatrice Dalle, Charlotte Gainsbourg, José Garcia, Sigourney Weaver, Jean Reno
  • Mathias: Nathalie Baye, Audrey Fleurot, Virginie Efira, Ramzy Bedia, Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Lanvin
  • Gabriel: Cécile de France, Line Renaud, Laura Smet, Julie Gayet, Norman Thavaud, Guy Marchand, Monica Bellucci, Isabelle Huppert, Franck Dubosc, Sandrine Kiberlain
• Delivery Guy: Noémie has to deliver Andréa's baby on the lobby carpet with over-the-phone instructions before the ambulance arrives.
• Doomed New Clothes: Juliette Binoche's form-fitting, delicate red carpet dress for the Cannes film festival. She actually rips it in the first scene when she stoops over to get her phone. Then she wrecks it seconds before she's due onstage to open the festival. She goes out anyway and laughs it off before going off-script for her speech.
• Droste Image: in the first episode, when Camille and Matthias are caught between mirrors as he confronts her about getting a job at the agency.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Jean Gabin, Arlette's dog, who always behaves aggressively towards colleagues guilty of indiscretion, spying or treason.
• Exiled to the Couch: Mathias confesses to his wife that Camille is his daughter in episode 5 of Season 1. Episode 6 starts with him sleeping on the couch.
• Fake-Out Opening: Season 2 ends with the prospect of Andrea getting a job in New York, with Camille as her assistant. Season 3 opens with a shot of the Satue of Liberty—and then the camera pans up to show the Eiffel Tower behind it. It's the small-scale model of the Statue in Paris, and Andrea didn't get that New York job.
• Fangirl: Camille and Sofia are often guilty of it when they stumble upon a celebrity.
• For Inconvenience, Press "1": Noemie freaks out in the second-season finale when the voice response system for a railway line can't understand her repeatedly saying "Change ticket!" (She is already upset because Mathias's wife has decided to meet him in Cannes and patch things up, thus ruining her hopes of a romantic getaway with him.)
• Foreshadowing: In their stuck-in-an-elevator moment in Season 4, Gabriel wonders if new arrival Elise might actually be a mole, sent to steal all their clients and destroy ASK from within. It turns out that is exactly what she's doing, and she succeeds, with ASK going out of business by the end of the series.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Arguably the four agents in their relationships towards their jobs and filmmaking more generally.
  • Matthias is the cynic, an adept backstabber whose only objective is to make money regardless of any artistic considerations.
  • Andréa is an optimist with a deep love of cinema and strong ideals that drive her to create great film projects.
  • Gabriel is the realist as he cares the most about his actors' well-being and careers.
  • Arlette is the apathetic, whose job objectives are not given much characterization beside being old-fashioned.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Andréa (choleric), Matthias (melancholic), Gabriel (sanguine) and Arlette (phlegmatic).
• Freudian Excuse: The director of the Don Juan play insists that the duck stays because when he was a child, he was in the pool playing with a rubber duck on the day his father left the family.
• Freudian Trio: Andréa is The Kirk, Mathias is The Spock and Gabriel is The McCoy.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • "ASK" stands for "Agence Samuel Kerr."
  • The new agency that Camille intends to start at the end of the series is set to be called CAM, after the initials of Camille, Arlette and Mathias.
• Gasp!: This is the reaction of everyone at the boardroom table when Hicham gets mad at Andréa and throws a pencil at her as though they're both children on the playground. When he turns up later to talk about how he's trying to be professional, she throws one at him.
• The Ghost: Many famous actors that ASK manages but that are not seen on screen. Among others, Léa Seydoux.
• Gossipy Hens: Hervé and Noémie.
  Hervé: One of the women sleeps with the guy, but I can't tell which one.
  Camille: OK.
  Hervé: The blonde one.
• Hidden Depths:
  • In season 4, it's revealed that Hervé has a natural talent for acting that nobody (least of all him) suspected. Then again, given his personality, perhaps it's not all that surprising.
  • Noémie is a better fit for producing a film with her administrative focus than Mathias, who really hasn't moved on from being an agent.
• Hollywood Old: Mentioned when Cécile de France, despite years of negotiation and hours of horse-riding lessons, gets dropped from a Tarantino movie because she is too old.
  Hervé: She is almost forty.
• Hypocritical Humor: Cécile de France drops Gabriel for not telling her that Tarantino refused her for being 40. When he catches up to explain, he finds her at a riding lesson and doing very poorly (she can't even get the horse to stop so she can talk to him) after an episode assuring him that she was an experienced rider.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode is titled with the first name of that week's celebrity client. (There are two different episodes titled "Isabelle", one for Isabelle Adjani and one for Isabelle Huppert.)
• Insistent Terminology: Julien Doré wants to make sure everyone understands that his film isn't just a musical, but an erotic musical.
• Internal Reveal: In episode 2.4, Mathias finally tells the rest of the agency that he is Camille's father, causing an uproar.
  • Epsode 1.4 has Mathias accompanying his client Audrey Fleurot to an audit where the agent nails her for a huge sum in back taxes.
• Large Ham:
  • Andréa, Hervé and Noémie all stand out as this (albeit for different reasons).
  • Deconstructed with Hervé's Season 3 crush Valentin, who is trying to pursue an acting career. Unfortunately he's an awful actor, severely overplaying every scene he tries and often shouting for no reason.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In order to get out of a terrible film project that she's accidentally committed herself to, Charlotte Gainsbourg lies about having broken her leg by slipping on a banana peel. Shortly afterwards, she breaks her leg...after slipping on a banana peel.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Naturally, the rules of drama were ready after Andréa and Hicham hook up.
• Lost in Translation:
  • American and British viewers might find it odd that nobody bats an eye when Hervé introduces himself with Camille's name when they are pretending to be the same agent in Season 3. Although the name "Camille" is used exclusively for girls in the Anglophone world, it's considered a unisex name in France.
  • The many gags that play on French pop-culture jokes and memes (e.g. people constantly calling Franck Dubosc "Patrick" in reference to his character Patrick Chirac from the Camping comedy films) don't translate easily to other countries and cultures.
• Mad Artist: Invoked and Played for Laughs with the more temperamental and eccentric talents, both in the acting and directing world, that ASK represents.
• Malicious Misnaming: Hicham, who knows Andréa from childhood, has a habit of ignoring her professional name of "Martel" and calling her by her true name of "Marteau" ("hammer") when he's mad at her or trying to get a rise out of her.
• Manipulative Bastard: While manipulation is all other the place, Andréa and Mathias stand out as masters. And then there's Elise Formain from Star Média, who arguably beats them both.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Close friends Andréa and Gabriel have this dynamic: Andréa is tough, assertive and extremely driven, while Gabriel is a hopeless romantic who also tends to be a bit of a pushover.
• May–December Romance: In season 4, Sigourney Weaver really wants Gaspard Ulliel (who was half her age) to be cast as the male lead in her upcoming romantic drama.
• Method Acting: In-Universe. Jean Dujardin gets so deep into his role as a World War I deserter that he signs the contract for his next film as his character (and apparently drags the document across the forest floor). When Andréa visits, he's living under some trees in his yard, still killing rabbits and in his same filthy, unwashed, unshaven state. Even after she and his wife get him drunk and clean him up, Dujardain doesn't snap out of it until he bites a director's dog for going after his old coat.
• My Beloved Smother: In-Universe, this is Laura Smet's relationship with her Real Life mother Nathalie Baye.
• Naked People Are Funny: In the season 4 premiere, Noémie and Mathias are walking by the Seine after the César award ceremony when Noémie abruptly strips off her robe-like dress to reveal she has nothing on underneath, and runs down the sidewalk completely naked while Mathias chases after her and attempts to cover her up with his trenchcoat. It's Played for Laughs.
• Noodle Incident: Sofia's musical film with Julian Doré The Orgasm of the Ocean. Aside from its almost defiantly strange plot, it apparently contains explicit sex and full-frontal nudity as well as stuffed animals in place of real ones (because the budget was so low). Though a scene from the movie is shown in season 3, most of its many horrors are left to the imagination of the audience. Eventually it bombs big time—even Doré's family decide to skip it—though it seems that the soundtrack was at least moderately successful.
  • For his part, Doré takes the film's failure in stride, chalking the whole thing up to an In-Universe case of True Art Is Incomprehensible. Sofia, on the other hand, is far more upset.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • Virgine Efira is photographed kissing another man during a media tour that is focused around the strong, mutually supportive relationship she has with her partner Ramzy Bédia. She insists to Mathias that it was a friendly kiss (on the mouth) and that "the angle makes it look worse."
  • Later, she and Mathias are photographed together late at night because she's crashing at the agency after the break-up. This one really was innocent, as he was just taking her arm to get her off the balcony because she was throwing things at the paparazzi. But in the wake of finding out about Camille, the tabloid photographs convince his wife to get a divorce.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Juliette Binoche and the huge security man that accompanies her red carpet jewelry. He offers to teach her how to behave while wearing an earpiece. Later they companionably share pizza in her room and talk about the movies.
  • Arlette, of all people, seems to be the only one of the agents that actually gets along well with Hicham.
• Of Corset Hurts: Audrey Fleurot is worried about making a comeback after delivering two children, so she wears a corset that causes her a lot of discomfort.
• Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: The three major end-game couples featured in the show—Andréa and Colette, Gabriel and Sofia, and Mathias and Noémie—all wind up experiencing many trials, tribulations and Will They or Won't They? drama over the course of its four seasons. And for Andréa and Colette, it's left ambiguous as to whether they'll ever be able to truly work out their differences.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: When Arlette tells Jean Reno that "Jean Gabin is dead," she's talking about her dog but he thinks she's talking about, well, Jean Gabin (who died in 1976). They both agree that Jean Gabin liked eating and sleeping but Reno is surprised to hear that Jean Gabin liked chasing a ball.
  Jean Reno: What is it, Alzheimer's?
  Andrea: No, it's grief.
• Opposites Attract:
  • The seductive, wild and brash Andréa falls instantly in love with the quieter, more traditionally romantic Colette. Their personality differences eventually lead to their break-up at the end of the first season. However, they do eventually agree to give the relationship another shot.
  • The extrovert, intense and extremely neurotic Noémie for the buttoned-up, conservative Mathias.
• Out-Gambitted: Mathias' plan to expose the agency to and then save them from a huge American lawsuit is foiled by the other three agents succeeding in an unlikely plot to use an actress' name double and pass it off as the director's artistic French whim.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: An indirect version when a playful montage shows older actresses Line Renaud and Françoise Fabian who compete for the same role, deliver sharp lines about each other to their respective entourage.
  Line: I have heard that she is tired, very tired.
  Françoise: Wonderful, she's so rare in movies, what was her last movie? Ah, right, the Ch'tis. ^note (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, a 2008 popular comedy)
  Line: At her last birthday, the candles cost more than the cake.
  Françoise: She would play a SS, people would find her likeable.
  Line: She has this elegance, a bit stiff. She can be terrifying, you know.
• Phoney Call: Joey Starr pretends to receive an urgent phone call to flee from an uncomfortable dinner with Julie Gayet. Too bad he actually took Julie's phone by mistake...
• Platonic Life-Partners: Gabriel and Andréa. Going as far as considering having children together despite Andréa being lesbian.
• Playing Against Type: Happens In-Universe a couple of times:
  • Franck Dubosc, known for popular but low-brow comedies such as the Camping series, deals with difficulties straying from his comfort zone after accepting a dramatic role in a César Bait project.
  • Sandrine Kiberlain, fed up with boredom at doing "serious" films, decides to become a stand-up comedian.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The death of Samuel, owner of ASK, in the first episode sets off a Succession Crisis plot line that takes up the entire first season, as his widow decides to sell the agency.
• Potty Dance: None other than Juliette Binoche is doing it at the Cannes Film Festival, which is a problem because 1) she has to go onstage in a manner of minutes as the MC, and 2) she is packed into a very tight dress that is hard to get out of.
• The Prima Donna: Laura Smet pretends to be one to fail her casting interview and get herself out of a movie project with her mother. It is apparently called "to Bardot".
  Laura Smet: I asked for a tea. A tea made of Himalayan flowers.
• Put on a Bus: Mathias' son Hippolyte is a significant presence in the first two seasons but is completely absent from the last two, although there are occasional references to his acting career being successful.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: In-Universe, how a screenwriter for a successful television series threatens to fire an unprofessional, self-obsessed actor from ASK: his character will suddenly get testicular cancer.
• Race for Your Love: Andréa after Colette at the end of the first season. It fails.
• Refugein Audacity: The agency tries to get out of being sued over Isabelle Huppert acting in two films simultaneously by finding another woman named Isabelle Huppert, and filming scenes to convince the American producers that there is another French actress with the same name. It works.
• National Stereotypes: Or French Regional Stereotypes...
  • Lampshaded. The morally challenged Finance government officer that Andréa bribes to avoid the finance audit of ASK is of course from the Hauts-de-Seine, a very wealthy département west of Paris well-known for its corrupt politicians.
  • Also Camille's mother. She is feisty and slightly overbearing, with a heavy south-eastern French accent (that Camille apparently did not inherit), and fails to understand why her daughter would leave the sunny Mediterranean seaside (and her) to go anywhere else.
  Camille's mother: [on fashion] There is no such thing as "too tacky".
• The Rival:
  • Unbeknownst to everyone but Arlette, Line Renaud and Françoise Fabian used to compete for Samuel's affection decades ago and are still bitter about it. Of course, Andréa makes good use of this.
  • Also Starmédia as the main competitor of ASK.
  • Andréa and Elise Formain are this for one another.
• Screaming Birth: Andréa. The emergency operator clocks how soon the baby's coming by how she sounds over the phone. (Gabriel does some screaming himself when Andréa bites his hand to cope with the pain.)
• Single-Minded Twins: Elise Formain's assistants. Though they're not technically twins, they look extremely similar, dress identically, and don't seem to have thoughts independent of one another.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Julie Gayet and Joey Starr.
• Stock Sitcom Grand Finale: ASK goes out of business. The gang has a farewell party where they talk about what they're going to do in the future. Then, after champagne, they all walk out, Hicham turning out the lights as they leave.
• Struggling Single Mother: Audrey Fleurot with her two kids. While not single, her husband is somewhere in South America making a documentary, she is too busy to get acting jobs and needs money to pay off overdue taxes.
  • Andréa gets a taste of what it feels like to be this when Colette disappears in season 4.
• Surprise Incest: Between half-siblings Camille and Hippolyte. Fortunately it does not got further than kissing, as any attraction the two had towards each other goes out the window when they find out.
• Take That!: Gabriel plans to try "the human approach" with the American producers so Isabelle Huppert can complete the one overlap day of filming on their film and a French one. His colleagues immediately scoff at the notion, and when he tries his story that she needs to leave early to do one toast at her son's wedding, they flatly reject it.
• Three-Way Sex: Andréa and Hicham wind up into one together after both trying to seduce the real-life model Aymeline Valade. But subverted as they end up shutting out Aymeline and having hate sex together.
  Gabriel: How was it?
  Andréa: Heavy. And hairy.
• Totally Radical: A low-key French version. Sofia and Camille's informal way of speaking is peppered with contemporary slang. It reinforces the idea that because of their youth, inexperience and background, they are outsiders to the predominantly Parisian and wealthy circles of the movie industry.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: In universe, here and there; examples include the incomprehensible and minimalist play with Sofia or the re-imagining of Don Juan that somehow involves a swimming pool, '80s pop music and a giant duck sextoy.
• Undignified Death: The founder of ASK dies after swallowing a wasp during his Brazilian vacation. It is so ridiculous that a rumor spreads that in fact, he died in a brothel.
  Françoise Fabian: Which goes to show that one can have both a life full of panache and a shitty death.
• Uptight Loves Wild: The dynamic between Mathias and Noémie is portrayed in this manner, particularly in the later seasons.
• Uptown Girl: Julie Gayet, in contrast to her film partner Joey Starr. Both in their respective roles in the film (an aristocrat and a domestic), and their real-life persona as a classy Parisian actress and a brusque rap singer turned actor.
• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: In the finale, after the agency breaks up, Andrea suggests her plans might be writing a TV series about a talent agency. The idea is immediately laughed off.
• Workaholic: Isabelle Huppert has a borderline pathological need to be working on a project at all times, and often several at the same time. When she winds up burning herself out and losing her voice, she uses the recuperation time to act in an experimental silent film.
• Worst Aid: After the head of Mediawan gets clobbered in the head by a César, Noemie bandages his forehead using scotch tape and paper towels.
• Zany Scheme: Many of the episode's workplace plots are about the agents trying various ill-fated plots to make their actors cooperate with the directors, screenwriters, etc—and sometimes working at cross-purposes. Special mention goes to their plot to convince American producers who had an exclusive contract with Isabelle Huppert that a concurrently-filmed scene in a French movie was done by another actress named Isabelle Huppert—in actuality a nurse they pass off as a "small-town actress" from a medical drama—because everyone knows French filmmakers have strange artistic ideas.

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