The consistent element is the theme of belonging and recognition.

Bourdin has described — in different interviews, in different ways — a sense of being nobody as himself, of being invisible and unwanted.

He describes the impersonations as attempts to become someone who was seen and cared for, to occupy an identity that generated warmth and attention.

“When I was Nicolas Barclay, I had a family,” he has reportedly said in interviews, in various formulations.

“As Frédéric Bourdin, I had nothing.”