Tintin Forums

Who played the Thompsons in Tintin and the Golden Fleece?
According to IMDB, they were credited as being named "Incognito," and they look like they might have been identical twins.

Bit of an old one to dig up; I thought that the subject had been dealt with somewhere on these forums, and came here to do a cross-check - but apparently it hasn't been, so I will add something now.

According to multiple places on the 'net - but with no guarantee that the information isn't all from some erroneous source, being repeated - they were a pair of twin brothers, Pedro and Pablo Gamonal, who seem to have been also known "Les Frères Gamonal", suggesting that they had some form of performance career.

It's a small step, and better than nothing, but without confirming that there is independant evidence for the facts of the matter, it should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt.

According to Jean-Pierre Talbot's memoir, they were a pair of twins who were friends of the producer. He describes them as members of the 'Tout-Paris' set – the social elite – and wished to remain anonymous. He adds (my translation) "I didn't find them very similar to those in the comic strip, but they put such good will into playing their characters that they became, for me, the living embodiment of the legendary detectives".

A contemporary review described them as amateur actors, so I wonder if they took on the roles as a favour to the producer.

Ah - I've got that! Wonder if that's why I thought it had been touched on before?


That makes sense - to be honest, I think that they seemed a pretty good fit for the Detectives, and given that all the cast - even the seasoned professionals - were giving fairly broad performances, they don't stick out as being amateur at all, to me.

One extra bit of information, from Philippe Lombard's Tintin, Hergé et le cinéma.

In a contemporary interview, producer André Barrett discussed assembling a cast who all felt like their fictional counterparts. "For the Thom(p)sons," he explained, "we preferred to go with two fifty-year-old identical twins who bore a rather extraordinary physical resemblance to the Thom(p)sons, rather than simply disguise actors as the Thom(p)sons."

Lombard also mentions them being part of the Tout-Paris set, adding that one twin worked in the media, the other in publishing, and that they were both dubbed in the film by Jacques Dufilho.