A l’occasion de la sortie de “Gibraltar”, plongée dans l’univers des narcotrafiquants portée par
Gilles Lellouche et Tahar Rahim, focus sur les secrets de tournage du film.

Gérard Depardieu et Vincent Lindon pressentis !
Le nom de Gérard Depardieu a longtemps été attaché au projet de “L’Aviseur” (Gibraltar a été adapté de l’oeuvre de Marc Fiévet “L’Aviseur” par le scénariste Abdel Raouf Dafri, et le film portait à la base le nom du livre) pour incarner le rôle de Marc Duval, finalement revenu à Gilles Lellouche. Il en fut de même pour le personnage de Redjani Beliman, que Tahar Rahim interprète, puisque cette place a été un temps attribuée à Vincent Lindon. Pierre Morel, réalisateur de Taken et From Paris With Love, a été en pourparlers pour être aux commandes de cette adaptation de “L’Aviseur”. Une fonction qui est finalement revenue à Julien Leclerq, le cinéaste de L’Assaut.

© Mika Cotellon / SND

Une histoire vraie

Gibraltar a été adapté de l’histoire vraie de Marc Fiévet, publiée sous le titre “L’Aviseur”. Dans les années 90, Fiévet a travaillé pour le compte des autorités douanières françaises et a infiltré les plus importants réseaux de narcotrafiquants de la mafia. Mais celui-ci a été trahi par ces mêmes autorités qui l’employaient et s’est retrouvé avec une peine de dix ans de prison à purger. Pendant ces années d’emprisonnement et jusqu’à sa libération en conditionnelle en 2005, Fiévet ne cessa de clamer l’injustice dont il a été victime. L’adaptation du récit a été écrite par le scénariste Abdel Raouf Dafri, notamment connu pour avoir travaillé sur les scénarios de Mesrine : L’Instinct de mort, Mesrine : L’Ennemi public n°1 et Un prophète.

© Mika Cotellon / SND

Naissance du projet

C’est à l’origine le producteur Dimitri Rassam qui a proposé l’idée du film Gibraltar à Julien Leclercq, en lui présentant le scénario alors qu’il était en plein tournage de son précédent film L’Assaut. Le réalisateur raconte : “J’ai rencontré son auteur, Abdel Raouf Dafri, et on a travaillé sur la réécriture pendant un an, tout en menant des repérages à Gibraltar car il fallait qu’on s’imprègne sur place de cet univers très particulier. […] Ce qui m’a plu, c’est ce père de famille qui, d’abord pour des raisons financières, met le pied dans une mécanique qui va le broyer et se retourner contre lui : tout à coup, à cause de lui, sa famille est en danger et il se retrouve pris en étau entre les Douanes françaises et les narcotrafiquants.”

© Mika Cotellon / SND

Références : Scorsese, Coppola, etc.

Les inspirations de Julien Leclercq et de Dimitri Rassam pour la réalisation du film ont été Traffic, Les Incorruptibles, American Gangster, Donnie Brasco et Les Affranchis. Le comédien italien Riccardo Scamarcio s’est inspiré quant à lui des films de Scorsese et de Coppola, ainsi que de son rôle de Nero (le Noir) dans Romanzo criminale de Michele Placido en 2005. Rien que ça !

© Mika Cotellon / SND

Gibraltar ?
Petit détail amusant : lorsqu’on lui a proposé le projet du film, le réalisateur Julien Leclercq ne savais pas situer Gibraltar sur une carte ! “Ce qui m’intéressait, c’est que cette histoire était plausible à cet endroit-là et à cette époque-là. Elle est donc intrinsèquement rattachée à ce lieu particulier et à l’explosion, dans les années 80, du trafic de cocaïne et de haschich en provenance du Maroc. Du coup, l’idée de mêler un Français à des mafieux italiens et irlandais, à des criminels écossais et marocains, et aux Douanes françaises et anglaises, m’a plu. D’autant plus que ce ne sont pas des artifices 5 scénaristiques : quand on va sur place, on entend au moins trois langues dans la rue. Gibraltar est à un carrefour de l’Europe qui brasse des nationalités et des cultures différentes.”

En savoir plus sur le film

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Emilie Crassus

Gibraltar

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Tout semble sourire à David Brécourt. L’acteur, sur les planches pour Garde Alternée – actuellement au Théâtre de la Gaîté Montparnasse – attend un heureux événement pour la fin de l’été.

Un petit garçon pour ses 50 ans. Interrogé par Gala.fr sur sa pièce de théâtre Garde Alternée – une comédie d’Edwige Antier et Louis-Michel Colla -, David Brécourt a fait part de son nouveau bonheur à venir. Sur scène, s’il joue aux côtés de Patrick Poivre d’Arvor et Alexandra Kazan, le comédien donne surtout la réplique à celle qui partage aussi sa vie, Alexandra Sarramona. La pétillante brune, ancienne championne de gym et également coach sportive, est enceinte de 4 mois et demi, comme nous l’a révélé le comédien.

Déjà papa de 3 grandes filles – l’aînée Manon a 30 ans, alors que ses jumelles nées de son union avec la maquilleuse de stars Malka Braun, Salomé et Esther, sont âgées de 18 ans -, David Brécourt nous a annoncé attendre un petit garçon pour la fin de l’été. Nous confiant sa joie et ses angoisses, de devoir, 18 ans après ces dernières couches, revenir aux basiques et pouponner à nouveau. « C’est étrange sur scène, le télescopage qu’il y a entre la pièce et notre vie, a-t-il confié. Nous jouons un couple en crise, et Alexandra me dit sur scène »C’est mon fils!”, alors qu’elle porte bien notre fils.”

Mais la ressemblance s’arrête là. Le comédien, plus amoureux que jamais, écrit un nouveau chapitre de sa vie aux côtés d’Alexandra. Un amour qui s’arrondit de jour en jour sur les planches du théâtre de la Gaîté Montparnasse.

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Retrouvez David Brécourt et Alexandra Sarramona sur les planches du Théâtre de la Gaîté, dans Garde Alternée, jusqu’au 4 juin 2016.

Crédits photos : Patrice Falour/Starface

WASHINGTON — 

For most of his 29 years in Congress, Bernie Sanders was mainly a left-wing gadfly, a relentless critic of the bipartisan Cold War consensus and a defender of regimes that resisted U.S. power.

When he ran for president four years ago, the senator from Vermont barely mentioned world affairs; his campaign website didn’t even have a foreign policy page for several months.

Since then, Sanders has evolved. In speeches, articles and interviews, he’s been working out a theory of what the U.S. role in the world should be after the “endless wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq are brought to an end, a step that remains his starting point.

He hasn’t declared a Sanders Doctrine, but he’s come close. And now that he has a real chance of winning the Democratic nomination, it’s worth a serious look.

He’s still anti-interventionist, but not isolationist. He wants the United States to engage in the outside world, but with far less recourse to military force.

He’s a multilateralist; he believes the United States should always act with other countries — and, when possible, through the United Nations.

Although he often reminds voters he’s the only candidate who voted against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he’s not a pacifist.

He has supported military action in cases of genocide (Bill Clinton’s war against Serbia in 1999) and terrorism (George W. Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Barack Obama’s war against Islamic State in 2014).

He backed the war in Afghanistan through most of the Obama administration, but concluded that it was a mistake to let it continue so long.

One pillar of the Sanders Doctrine sounds traditional, a return to a bedrock principle that both parties shared before the rise of Donald Trump.

“As the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth, we have got to help lead the struggle to defend and expand a rules-based international order,” he said in 2017 at Westminster College in Missouri, in his first big foreign policy speech.

Another tenet is untraditional: making foreign policy an extension of the domestic “political revolution” Sanders wants.

“We need to counter oligarchic authoritarianism with a strong global progressive movement,” he said at Johns Hopkins University in 2018. “We must … reconceptualize a global order based on human solidarity.”

If Sanders is elected, we’d probably see the most dramatic changes in the Middle East. He wants to end uncritical U.S. support for two longtime allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Sanders, who is Jewish and spent several months on a kibbutz in 1963, says he’s “pro-Israel.” But he opposes the hawkish government of Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he has called “a racist.” He says he’d make U.S. policy “evenhanded” and try to broker a deal to create a Palestinian state.

Like all of the Democratic candidates, Sanders says he’d try to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that Trump has abrogated. What’s more, he says he’d try to arrange a working relationship between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, which he has called “a brutal dictatorship … [that] is not a reliable ally.”

If Sanders wins the nomination, Trump and other Republicans will accuse him, accurately, of being a socialist. They’ll call him soft on defense, a traditional GOP attack on all Democratic candidates. But Sanders will have a comeback: He’ll ask Trump why it took him so long to keep his promise to bring U.S. troops home.

If Sanders wins the White House, his presidency would mark a huge change from Trump — a return to a foreign policy resembling President Obama’s in many respects.

Sanders would reaffirm the importance of NATO to U.S. security, and restore human rights and democracy promotion as U.S. goals. And he’d try to work through the United Nations — a nostalgic aspiration that may be difficult to fulfill amid the mounting U.S. rivalry with Russia and China, which have veto power on the Security Council.

But in other ways, Sanders would bring surprising continuity. Like Trump, he would disengage U.S. troops from the Middle East. Like Trump, he says he would be quick to use tariffs as a weapon in trade wars.

And the Sanders presidency would be the third in a row in which a president deliberately sets out to downsize U.S. ambitions and reduce U.S. commitments.

If that day comes, romantics will cross their fingers and pray that President Sanders succeeds. Cynics will cover their eyes and wait for him to collide with reality in the Middle East and other places where the balm of human solidarity is too often hard to find.

A look at the top 25 high school boys’ basketball teams in the Southland.

Rk. SCHOOL (W-L) Next game (previous ranking)

1. SIERRA CANYON (18-2) vs. Fairfax (Va.) Paul VI, Monday (1)

2. CORONA CENTENNIAL (18-2) at Eastvale Roosevelt, Wednesday (2)

3. ETIWANDA (19-2) at Chino Hills, Tuesday (4)

4. RANCHO CHRISTIAN (17-4) vs. Hyattsville (Md.) DeMatha, Monday (3)

5. HARVARD-WESTLAKE (19-2) vs. Crespi, Wednesday (5)

6. ST. ANTHONY (22-1) at Bishop Montgomery, Wednesday (7)

7. ST. JOHN BOSCO (16-5) vs. El Camino Real, Monday (10)

8. MATER DEI (16-4) vs. Bishop O’Connell, Monday (6)

9. RIBET ACADEMY (15-1) at Firebaugh, Tuesday (9)

10. WINDWARD (17-5) vs. Lynwood at St. John Bosco, Monday (11)

11. HERITAGE CHRISTIAN (19-3) at Village Christian, Tuesday (8)

12. SANTA CLARITA CHRISTIAN (14-5) vs. Grant at Taft, Monday (12)

13. RIVERSIDE POLY (17-3) vs. Capital Christian at St. Mary’s, Monday (14)

14. JSERRA (18-3) at Mater Dei, Wednesday (15)

15. FAIRFAX (17-4) vs. Venice, Wednesday (13)

16. ST. BERNARD (15-6) vs. Foothills Christian at St. John Bosco, Monday (19)

17. CAPISTRANO VALLEY (19-1) vs. Washington Prep at St. John Bosco, Monday (20)

18. OXNARD (22-1) at Ventura, Wednesday (21)

19. DAMIEN (16-5) vs. St. Patrick-St. Vincent, Monday (18)

20. CHAMINADE (19-4) vs. Bishop Alemany, Tuesday (17)

21. OAK PARK (19-2) vs. Sylmar at Taft, Monday (22)

22. KING/DREW (16-4) vs. Crossroads, Monday (23)

23. ALEMANY (18-5) at Chaminade, Wednesday (24)

24. TAFT (15-5) vs. Eastside, Monday (NR)

25. RENAISSANCE ACADEMY (16-7) at Price, Tuesday (16)

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HOUSTON — 

It’s a puzzle Lakers coach Frank Vogel might eventually have to solve, a long-bearded, left-handed, back-stepping puzzle that the rest of the NBA hasn’t really been able to figure out.

Deciding how to guard Houston’s James Harden isn’t the kind of thing that’s best undertaken with a day of preparation. He’s the NBA’s leading scorer, the kind of player whose countermoves have countermoves.

No one really stands a chance, coaches trying to find the decision that’s the best of a bunch of bad options, until the postseason has rolled around.

For the last four seasons, Harden has been less dynamic, less efficient, less terrifying in the playoffs. Maybe it’s because he carries such a heavy load during the season and the miles just add up. Or maybe, and this is certainly part of it, that with a little time, the puzzle isn’t as impossible.

“Elite offensive players are always the most difficult to prepare for, and the support system that teams put around elite offensive players is what you evaluate as much as the player itself. And how much help can you bring,” Vogel said before the Lakers’ 124-115 victory Saturday. “Certainly … in a playoff series you would have more time to lock in to all the nuances of how they play, and if you’re afforded the luxury of being more creative in terms of working on a unique scheme, potentially, than you would with one day of preparation in the regular season.”

Even though they’re months away, it’s not too early for the Lakers to be thinking about the playoffs, especially on this trip. If things go according to their plans, they easily could see the Rockets in the Western Conference semifinals or conference finals. And the games with Boston and Philadelphia, those could be potential NBA Finals matchups.

It’s why Vogel isn’t letting this trip be just a bunch of empty airline miles. Tucked into these games, he’ll look for moments to test lineups, strategies and approaches to try to find a handful of things that could be useful in May and June.

“Absolutely. We do that. We’ve actually done some things over the last three or four weeks that we wouldn’t normally do if we had to win only that game,” Vogel said. “System or scheme development, we call it. We’re going to need to double team in the playoffs this way, let’s do that each game, whether there’s a need to do it or not.”

It couldn’t be a true experiment Saturday night in Houston, not with Anthony Davis sidelined. But the Lakers and Vogel still tried some interesting things.

Early, they guarded Harden fairly straight-up, with Avery Bradley and Danny Green taking turns sitting on Harden’s left hip in an effort to move him away from his dominant hand. As the game progressed, the Lakers started to double team more frequently.

Sometimes, the Lakers would send two wings at Harden late in the clock. Other times, if the situation presented it, they’d use an on-ball stopper like Green or Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in a trap with JaVale McGee or Dwight Howard.

“We threw different looks [at Harden]. We trapped him sometimes. Sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we did this, sometimes we did that,” Green said. “We didn’t give him a steady diet of the same thing all night. I think it made him think a little more and make other guys make plays.”

It wasn’t perfect. Some of the Lakers’ double teams were too slow, allowing Harden to move the ball to the open man who would score an easy layup. But largely, the Lakers were effective, especially in the third quarter when Houston scored only 17 points and the game got blown open.

And the Lakers weren’t the only team toying with strategy. Houston coach Mike D’Antoni did his best to mirror LeBron James’ minutes with P.J. Tucker’s, keeping his best defensive option on the court whenever the Lakers’ top offensive one was there too.

Saturday, Vogel’s plans worked better.

Does that mean the Lakers discovered anything special, some secret formula to guarding Harden that will come up huge in the postseason? Nope. Ask around and players still weren’t sure what worked best and when or why.

“I honestly don’t know,” Bradley said with a shrug.

LAS VEGAS — 

The high-water mark of Conor McGregor’s UFC career came a little more than three years ago at Madison Square Garden when he defeated Eddie Alvarez to become the first fighter in the promotion’s history to hold titles in two divisions simultaneously.

After his historic victory he stood in the center of the octagon with a championship belt draped over each shoulder and said, “I would like to take this chance to apologize … to absolutely nobody!”

It was an iconic moment for the infamously unapologetic McGregor. It’s also a reminder now of how much McGregor has changed.

Going into Saturday’s fight against Donald Cerrone at T-Mobile Arena, a calmer McGregor complimented his opponent at every turn, shook his hand multiple times and was genuinely sorry for being tardy to Friday’s weigh-in.

“I apologize I’m a little bit late,” McGregor said. “It’s hard work getting the kids ready and bringing them to the events. So thank you all for your patience.”

As much as McGregor has changed outside the octagon, he gave fans a glimpse of the old McGregor inside of it Saturday with a technical knockout in 40 seconds against Cerrone, who has the most victories in UFC history and was taken to the hospital afterward. Following a 15-month layoff, McGregor returned with a flurry of kicks and punches to score one of the most dominant victories of his career and put himself in position for another fight, perhaps as early as March 7 at UFC 248 in Las Vegas, or maybe at UFC 249 on April 18 in Brooklyn if the main event between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson doesn’t happen.

“He doesn’t believe the Khabib-Ferguson fight is going to happen,” UFC boss Dana White said. “He wanted this fight at 170 so then he’ll be ready for that.”

White said at the postfight news conference that he wanted to set up a rematch with Nurmagomedov and that it would be the biggest fight in UFC history.

Jorge Masvidal, who beat Nate Diaz in November for the recently created BMF title and sat in the front row Saturday, is another possibility, as is welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, who also was in attendance. McGregor sounded like he wanted to fight them all.

“Any one of these mouthy fools can get it,” he said. “All of them. Every single one of them can get a chance. It does not matter. I’m back and I’m ready!”

McGregor has become a father — his son, Conor Jack McGregor Jr., was born in 2017 and his daughter, Croia, was born last year — and he started his own Irish whiskey company since his previous victory in 2016. He lost to Floyd Mayweather in his first and only boxing match in 2017 and lost to Nurmagomedov in 2018.

McGregor rededicated himself during training for this fight. He gave up alcohol and woke up early, which was once unthinkable for a fighter who regularly drank, stayed out late and slept in even during fight week.

“It happened naturally, to be honest,” McGregor said. “With the kids, I couldn’t stay up late and stay in bed. The kids would be running around and jumping on me.”

No one’s happier to see McGregor back than White, who would like him to fight two more times this year.

“This guy is a massive superstar,” White said. “He’s not just the biggest star in MMA, he’s one of the biggest stars ever in the history of combat sports. I put him up there with Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard.”

There was some doubt whether McGregor would return to the UFC as he dealt with legal issues, pleading guilty to two assault cases and being the subject of two sexual assault allegations (he is being investigated but has not been charged). McGregor said, “I have done nothing wrong” but acknowledged the last 15 months helped him mature.

“I’m certainly more grown and more experienced and I’ve been through certain things that have helped shaped me as a man like us all on this journey of life,” he said. “But if you were to ask my family and the people who know me, I am no different. Inside I’m still the same young kid that I always was. I’m a passionate young man reaching for the stars and aspiring to do things that have never been done before.”

While the cocky McGregor fans became accustomed to has grown into a more mature McGregor, he said it’s for the best.

“I want to be the best version of myself,” McGregor said. “Everyone says they want the old Conor, the 2016 Conor, the Conor that fought Eddie, but I feel I’m in a better place than that. … Sometimes we have to go to certain places in our life to realize what we need to do and I’ve certainly turned over a new leaf.”

As thousands of people gathered downtown for the fourth Women’s March, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles offered its own comment on the matter with a smaller procession that began at the city’s birthplace.

The sixth OneLife LA rally and march started at noon at Olvera Street, with welcoming remarks by Archbishop José H. Gomez. From there, participants were scheduled to walk about a mile up Spring Street to Los Angeles State Historic Park, to a festival that included music, food trucks and array of speeches by advocates who reflected the Roman Catholic Church’s anti-abortion, anti-death penalty teachings.

“`Love is the reason for our lives,” Gomez said in a statement. “And love is the reason we commit ourselves to defending the child in the womb, the poor and the homeless, the prisoner and the sick, the elderly and the disabled, mothers in crisis and young people in need of foster care.”

The keynote is Cyntoia Brown-Long, who was sentenced to life in prison at age 16 in 2004 for killing a man who had solicited her for sex. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslan granted her clemency after a PBS documentary made her case into a cause celebré.

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At 5 p.m., OneLife LA was scheduled to conclude with Gomez offering the 25th annual Respect Life Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles.

Though not approaching the size of the Women’s March, attendance at the Catholic event is still impressive: last year, faithful from across the Southland participated.

Officially put on by the Archdiocese’s Office of Life, Justice, and Peace, a representative said the fact it’s been held on the same date as the Women’s March for the past three years was a complete coincidence, noting OneLife LA is two years older. Office director and event organizer Kathleen Domingo said the events are similar only so much as the two “are gathering to unite our [respective] communities from diverse backgrounds.”

Without directly commenting on the progressive politics that mostly fuel the Women’s March, Domingo said, “We’re very positive at OneLife. We don’t talk about opposing anything. We show love and mercy to people no matter who they are and what kind of situation they’re in, and focus on the beauty and dignity of every human life.”

Torrance police have arrested a 19-year-old woman on suspicion of brutally beating a 7-Eleven store clerk who remains hospitalized in a coma, authorities said.

Jordyn Kolone of Harbor City was booked Thursday evening after investigators released surveillance images of the assailants in the Jan. 11 robbery, according to a statement from the Torrance Police Department. Kolone was being held in Los Angeles County jail in lieu of $1-million bond, and is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday, according to inmate records.

Police allege that Kolone and an unidentified male accomplice walked into the 7-Eleven on Sepulveda Boulevard and Western Avenue about 1 a.m. and grabbed beer from the refrigerator. The pair left the convenience store without paying, and the clerk chased them outside the store.

There, police said, the attackers beat the man, leaving blows to his head, and he was left on the ground. An online fundraiser identified the victim as Syed Ali, and his relatives said in a statement that he was rescued by a person driving by who stopped and provided aid.

“He was able to cough up some blood before finally taking a breath,” Ali’s relatives said in the statement.

Police released surveillance photos of the man involved in the beer theft. Investigators said that a third suspect was also involved, but no image of him was released.

Ali’s family said that he is a father of four young children who moved two years ago from Pakistan. He has undergone surgery on his skull and was recovering in an intensive care unit.

“He has severe brain damage due to internal bleeding in the brain and is currently in a coma. He may never wake up or have use of his body again. He may never wake up to see his family again either,” his family wrote.

Police said the search for the two outstanding suspects was ongoing. Anyone with information was asked to contact the Torrance Police Department at (310) 328-3456.

Federal authorities moved Los Angeles attorney Michael Avenatti to New York on Friday ahead of a trial later this month on charges that he tried to extort more than $20 million from sports giant Nike, his attorney said.

U.S. marshals transported Avenatti by private jet, and he’s at Metropolitan Correction Center awaiting classification, attorney H. Dean Steward said Saturday.

The move came two days after a federal judge revoked Avenatti’s bail and ordered him jailed while awaiting trial on three indictments, saying new allegations of fraud and money laundering show he poses a danger to the public.

Avenatti was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon at a California State Bar Court hearing. The state bar is seeking to block him from practicing law while he faces bank fraud, tax evasion and other charges in the three federal indictments. Prosecutors have accused him of stealing millions from his own clients.

Avenatti, who gained fame as the lawyer for adult film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had a one-night stand with Donald Trump in 2006, has denied wrongdoing.

After the Nike case concludes, he will face a second federal trial in New York on charges that he stole from Daniels by skimming money from her deal to write a memoir detailing her alleged affair with President Trump.

After that, Avenatti is to be tried in Santa Ana federal court on the most sweeping of the three cases. He is accused of fraud, perjury, failure to pay taxes, embezzlement and other financial crimes. Prosecutors allege he stole millions of dollars from five clients and used a tangle of shell companies and bank accounts to cover up the theft.

Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.

San Diego — 

For all of their skill in the laboratory and classroom, scientists aren’t always great at imparting their ideas to the public, policymakers and donors.

It’s a cultural thing. Historically, science — especially the life sciences — hasn’t placed a premium on speaking to the masses.

But change is coming.

Scripps Research in La Jolla announced Thursday that it will partner with one of the nation’s great storytellers, Emmy Award-winning actor Alan Alda, to teach scientists and medical professionals to communicate more effectively.

Scripps is becoming the West Coast home of Alda Communication Training, a company that teaches communication skills using the Alda Method, which heavily relies on improvisational theater techniques.

Alda wanted to expand his New York company and was enamored of Scripps Research, a cog in one of the largest science and medical research communities in the country.

“It’s extraordinary that such an institution has decided to partner with us and have a facility on their campus that will be an attractive place for scientists to come,” Alda told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The 83-year-old Alda, who has Parkinson’s disease, is best known for an acting career that includes his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series “M*A*S*H” and his portrayal of a divorce attorney in “Marriage Story,” which received six Oscar nominations Monday.

But he is also noted for his work as a science educator. He was host of the PBS series “Scientific American Frontiers,” wrote a science book, “If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?” and has a podcast, “Clear+Vivid.”

He also created the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York, which gave rise to his communications company. It has trained 15,000 science leaders nationally.

Alda’s work earned him the National Academy of Science’s Public Welfare Medal in 2016.

He spends a lot of time improving and expanding the training program, which is conducted mostly in two-day workshops by teachers from various fields.

“We are able to help scientists talk in a way that people not only understand but see as relevant to their own lives,” Alda said.

“The public benefits by having a better understanding of what should be pursued with government funding, and by being let in on the beauty of nature.”

National surveys and studies have shown that the public is interested in science and medicine, and that many people firmly grasp both. But many also struggle. A 2018 National Science Board survey revealed that much of the public does not understand basic facts about such things as genes, antibiotics and evolution.

A lack of education is a big factor. So is the fast-changing nature of technology. In recent years, the field has created such complexities as CRISPR-Cas9, a genome editing tool.

The training workshops will begin in June and initially cater to people who work in the life sciences, one of California’s largest industries. The program is expected to serve broad areas of science and medicine.

The workshops will emphasize improvisational theater games and exercises to teach scientists to be better listeners and observers, especially in reading people’s body language. They also will be taught how to discuss their work in clear, compelling, relatable ways, and to find more empathy for the people they serve.

The techniques arose, in part, from the moments of deep human interaction Alda was able to strike with some of his guests when he hosted “Scientific American Frontiers.”

“What I was doing was practicing what I had learned in improvisation,” Alda said. “The essence of it is not making things up. The essence is the contact you make with the other person — the openness you have, the responsiveness. You say the next thing not because you thought of it but because the other person makes you say it because you’re so responsive.

“It helps develop a message that’s just right for the person you’re talking to.”

Dozens of Scripps Institute researchers have already had the training, including Bruce Torbett, an immunologist who said the workshops “really help you get your point across with people and to judge your audience and readjust what you say.”

Alda’s staff will do most of the teaching. But he remains deeply involved, partly because he doesn’t want disease to define him.

“I know from personal experience that, in the public mind, when you get a diagnosis of Parkinson’s [you might think] life is over,” Alda said.

“This is not good for patients because they are liable to give in and not do exercise or take the medications that are available to hold off the progression of the disease.

“I want to communicate the idea that, in the beginning, it is not as bad as it will get later. You can do everything that gives you pleasure in life. If you do that, you can take advantage of holding off the worst for quite a while, and wait for more progress to be made [in treating Parkinson’s].”

Robbins writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.