Directed by Peter Chelsom
Screenplay by Maria von Heland and Peter Chelsom & Tinker Lindsay
Based on the Novel „Le Voyage D’Hector“ Written by François Lelord and published by Editions Odile Jacob
Cast
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Rosamund Pike | … |
Clara
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Simon Pegg | … |
Hector
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Toni Collette | … |
Agnes
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Stellan Skarsgård | … |
Edward
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Christopher Plummer | … |
Professor Coreman
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Jean Reno | … |
Diego
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Chris Gauthier | … |
Roger
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Chad Willett | … |
Allan
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Togo Igawa | … |
Old Monk
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Jakob Davies | … |
Young Hector
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Gabrielle Rose | … |
French Proprietress
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Deborah Rosan | … |
Actress
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Veronica Ferres | … |
Anjali
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Rebecca Davis | … |
April
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Barry Atsma | … |
Michael
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Marcus Shakesheff | … |
Office Boy
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Ming Zhao | … |
Ying Li
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Tessa Jubber | … |
US Woman – LA Flight
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Raj Lal | … |
Bartender
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Hannah Longworth | … |
Lilly
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Aiden Longworth | … |
Jack
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Jordan Schartner | … |
Evil Plane Assassin
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Aaron Le | … |
Young Monk
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Sivan Raphaely | … |
LA Stewardess
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Adrian Preoteasa | … |
Student
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Produced by
John Albanis | … | co-producer |
Christian Angermayer | … | executive producer |
Hilary Davis | … | associate producer |
Klaus Dohle | … | producer |
Trish Dolman | … | producer |
Christine Haebler | … | producer |
Marc Hansell | … | executive producer |
Peter Hermann | … | line producer |
Phil Hunt | … | producer |
Stephen Kelliher | … | associate producer |
Jens Meurer | … | executive producer |
Yasin Qureshi | … | co-producer |
Markus Reinecke | … | associate producer |
Compton Ross | … | producer |
Elliot Ross | … | executive producer |
Fenella Ross | … | executive producer |
Judy Tossell | … | producer |
Brad Van Arragon | … | line producer |
Music by
Dan Mangan |
Cinematography by
Kolja Brandt |
Film Editing by
Claus Wehlisch |
Casting By
Deborah Aquila | ||
Judy Lee | ||
Tricia Wood |
Production Design by
Michael Diner |
Art Direction by
Laurel Bergman | ||
Emilia Roux |
Set Decoration by
James Boatman | … | (set dresser) |
James Willcock |
Costume Design by
Guy Speranza |
Makeup Department
Anne Carroll | … | key hair stylist |
Monica Huppert | … | key makeup artist |
Production Management
Cheryl Eatock | … | production manager: Africa |
Jim O’Grady | … | production manager |
Michael Williams | … | production manager |
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Paula Antil | … | third assistant director |
Paul Barry | … | first assistant director |
Philip Nee Nee | … | second assistant director |
Amanda Petura | … | trainee assistant director |
Art Department
John Beatty | … | construction coordinator |
Shannon Courte | … | art department coordinator / graphic designer |
Robert J. Dugdale | … | artist |
Kate Hilson | … | graphic designer |
Garry Moore | … | standby carpenter |
Emilia Roux | … | art supervisor: South Africa |
Maggie Wilson | … | property master |
Renata Zaleska | … | assistant property master |
Sound Department
Adrian Baumeister | … | dialogue editor |
Michael Hough | … | boom operator |
Mark Noda | … | sound mixer |
Carsten Richter | … | foley artist |
Markus Stemler | … | sound designer |
Martin Steyer | … | sound re-recording mixer |
Marcus Sujata | … | foley mixer |
Special Effects by
Alex Burdett | … | special effects supervisor |
Terence J. Cox | … | special effects technician |
Visual Effects by
Matthias Albrecht | … | digital film editor |
Sebastian Göhs | … | digital colorist |
Thomas Ramin | … | technical director: CinePostproduction |
Stunts
Dan Hirst | … | stunt coordinator / stunt double: Simon Pegg |
Glenn Marks | … | stunt coordinator |
Owen Walstrom | … | stunt coordinator |
Camera and Electrical Department
Ed Araquel | … | still photographer |
Chris Cavanagh | … | video operator: UK |
Julian Chapdelaine | … | grip |
Nicholas Dent | … | grip |
Niklas Fischer | … | second assistant camera: Germany |
Kieran Humphries | … | first assistant camera: “a” camera |
Gaelle Jego | … | lighting technician |
Justin Johns | … | video assist operator |
Justin Lesch | … | best boy grip: second unit |
Oliver Loncraine | … | camera operator: uk |
Collin Morrison | … | lighting technician |
Dietmar Raiff | … | first assistant camera: Bavaria |
Cody Rusinko | … | lighting technician |
Dean Schwingboth | … | best boy grip |
Ian Seabrook | … | underwater director of photography |
Kat Spencer | … | central loader: UK unit |
Michael Swan | … | camera operator |
Derek Ueckermann | … | first assistant camera: South Africa |
Kieran Waites | … | electrician |
Tyler Woeste | … | first assistant camera |
Casting Department
Bonnie Lee Bouman | … | casting: South Africa |
James Forsyth | … | extras casting |
Edward D. Rea | … | casting associate |
Music Department
Adrian Baumeister | … | music editor |
Falko Duczmal | … | score recording engineer |
Henning Fuchs | … | music coordinator / music editor / music production coordinator berlin / orchestrator |
Peter Fuchs | … | score mixer |
Transportation Department
Gord Alyward | … | transportation captain |
Billy McRobbie | … | driver: cast |
Other crew
Daisy Baldry | … | floor runner: UK |
Dave Booys | … | production assistant |
Anne-Cécile Boulais | … | production assistant |
Robert Brinkschulte | … | script translator |
Gero Brugmann | … | legal services: production financing |
James Cleave | … | floor runner: UK |
Peter Cummings | … | product placement / research: clearance & placement |
Ian Doig | … | animal coordinator: Canada |
Claire Finbow | … | assistant: Simon Pegg |
Katie Gallant | … | production assistant |
Rebekka Garrido | … | project supervisor Post Republic |
Meredith Garstin | … | production assistant |
Iona Harris | … | assistant to director: UK Unit / assistant to director: UK |
Carol Heij | … | production coordinator: africa |
Patti Henderson | … | additional script supervisor |
Danny Ho | … | playback supervisor |
Lorraine Jamison | … | unit publicist |
Frank Lehmann | … | production executive |
Grace MacLeod | … | animal trainer: Canada |
Emma Mallett | … | production coordinator: UK |
Andrew Thomas Mckenzie | … | stand-in for simon pegg/floor runner: UK |
Jim McKeown | … | producer’s assistant |
Hanna Menon | … | production assistant |
Dave T. Nall | … | wrangler |
Mark O’Connell | … | social media manager |
Lawra Robertson | … | assistant to brad van arragon |
Christopher Spencer | … | assistant production coordinator |
Lydia Strojin | … | production assistant |
David Taylor | … | unit manager: uk |
David Taylor | … | unit manager: uk |
Amanda Verhagen | … | production office assistant |
Adam Webb | … | location assistant |
Chris Webb | … | location manager: uk |
Mark Wilson | … | assistant location manager: uk |
Anthony Wittrock | … | production assistant |
Tomas Wittrup | … | director assistant |
Laura Wootton | … | stand-in for rosamund pike: UK |
Andrew Jack | … | dialect coach: Veronica Ferres (uncredited) |
Harro von Have | … | legal advisor: financing (uncredited) |
Hector is a successful young psychiatrist with the right spectacles, the right office furniture, and all the right medications at his disposal but he feels like a failure. His patients—an urban, educated, and seemingly privileged class of people—are persistently unhappy, and despite his excellent training and sympathetic ear, Hector doesn’t know how to truly help them. Even worse, he finds himself becoming increasingly drained and dissatisfied by his own life, including his uncertain relationship with an equally successful pharmaceutical marketing professional named Clara.
Ready for a break, Hector books a vacation with a mission: He will travel the world in search of what makes people happy or unhappy. Since Clara is too busy with work, he sets out on his own, stopping first in China to visit his old school friend Édouard. Through Édouard, a lonely businessman trapped on the money-making treadmill, he learns one of his first lessons—that no matter how fine the wine, happiness can’t really be bought. He also meets a young woman, Ying Li, who teaches him about love, and an elderly monk who questions the very nature of his journey but invites him to return when he’s completed it.
From there, Hector travels to Africa to visit another friend, a doctor working with impoverished patients. Here again, Hector finds plenty of new inspiration in his study of happiness, from a meal with a local family to cheerful conversations in the hotel bar with a drug lord and a bartender. When he has a run-in with the local mob and is held hostage in a storage closet for a terrifying spell, however, he finds himself faced with newer, starker realities.
Narrowly escaping his death, Hector travels to the United States to meet with a happiness expert. He shares his collected wisdom with the scholar and manages to draw a few more conclusions about the connection between happiness and relationships. After returning to meet with the Chinese monk a second time, Hector is finally ready to put his learning to work—and bring his hard-won research home.
This charming debut from psychiatrist and self-help author François Lelord—now an international bestseller—is an engaging parable about modern man’s never-ending search for contentment. Told with a fairy tale’s naïve wisdom and a satirist’s dry wit, Hector and the Search for Happiness distills a complex world of immigrant peasants, kindly drug barons, doctors without borders, depressed psychics, and lovelorn academics into a feel-good life manual.