As a well-researched and precise profile of the actor's work, La Leçon de comédie is the perfect antidote to all the long-winded speeches and quips about the theatre, to all the prejudices and other simplistic theories about this profession – which is really not one – and to theories claiming that, in order to act, one must be as natural "as one is in real life," that actors are puppets or instruments of the Director-King, that the script is only a pretext, and that the theatre is a rather harmless and antiquated place of entertainment.

No, not everyone can be an actor, and yes, there is an art to interpreting a role. Through this work, Michel Bouquet has managed to restore all of its value and significance to acting.