She was only Roy Dupuis’ daughter-in-law in Blanche, but she becomes his wife and mother of his children in Million Dollar Babies. Quite a promotion! The 30-year-old artist who’s a rocker at heart is on the path to stardom.

If only Céline Bonnier were to stick to the same role for long enough, we might get to know her a bit better. But she is such a comet that she sparkles then disappears.

Since graduating from the Academy of Dramatic Art of Quebec in 1987, she has been involved in the theatre more often than all other media put together. When she started out she appeared on TV, but even she doesn’t remember the name of the minor character she played on the children’s programme Félix et Ciboulette. << it was ‘Ève’ – viv >>  In the TV series Blanche things are clearer, she played Thèrèse, the wife of Paul (Robert Brouillette).

Between theatrical works (such as Robert Lepage’s Les plaques tectoniques) Céline Bonnier plays music. She plays several instruments, but it’s her voice and her mastery of the accordion that she uses to best effect when she gets up on stages across the province with Extasium, a rock group.

This versatility is a deliberate choice. “I’ve always tried to do as much as possible. I come from a big family (8 children) where there were a lot of choices. My mother had a great love of the arts. We all did music, a little drama.  The more I do the better I feel. Otherwise I suffocate!”

The summer of intensity

The summer of 1994, however, forced her to concentrate her energies. During this period she filmed, one after the other, the mini-series Million Dollar Babies and Louis Saïa’s film The Sphinx. In the mini-series she plays Elzire Dionne, the mother of quintuplets, who capitulated in the face of the greed of the people who capitalised on the babies’ fame. Just like the girls, she was a victim. Céline Bonnier on the other hand projects the image of an achiever. On the face of it then, casting her in the part wasn’t so obvious, as was noted at her first audition. “One of the producers thought that I didn’t look sufficiently worn out to play the part of a mother,” she says. This took no account of her training and self-confidence. “I’m an actress,” is all she has to say when asked what qualities allowed her, despite everything, to create a believable Elzire Dionne. “And Christian (Duguay, the director) liked me enough to stick his neck out and put up a bit of a fight so that I got the part.”

She swears moreover that she wasn’t too far removed from the character. “It wasn’t entirely made up. OK, I agree I’m not a mother and I haven’t raised any children. But Elzire was 25 at the time of the births and we follow her into her thirties. Now, I was 29 at the time it was filmed. So I haven’t really been cast against type. And as for this more unassuming side of motherhood, I’m like that sometimes …”

Her meeting with the quintuplets

Before filming started, Céline met the three remaining Dionne sisters. Their story captivated the actress and instilled into her work an intensity that a piece of fiction could not have generated. “Like everyone I’d heard about the Dionne quintuplets but I didn’t know the details of their story. When I found out I was astonished and shocked.”

Cécile, Annette and Yvonne didn’t tell her how to play their mother. Through reading and watching documentaries, the actress ended up defining an Elzire that the media tornado ignored. With the agreement of the director, she accentuated certain characteristics.

The night of the premiere, Céline met a man from Ontario who had interviewed Elzire Dionne for a  book. This man, one of the rare few who could compare the real Elzire with her clone, congratulated her on her performance. “It was the most wonderful compliment I could have had!”

A colleague called Roy

Céline has nothing but excellent memories of her partnership with Roy Dupuis, her husband in the mini-series. “He’s a very good worker; he’s professional and very generous.” Even though this was her first collaboration with an actor who has reached mythical proportions in some circles, she didn’t go to pieces in the presence of the James Dean of Quebec. “I’m not that sort of person. When there’s a job to be done I’m not too impressionable. I think you waste a lot of time and energy with things like that.”

Mention out loud the possibility that the producers of a soap are interested in her and are offering her a long-running part, she immediately rejects this idea. “I don’t want to do the same thing for three years. Not now anyway.”

Céline Bonnier’s career will continue to take an unpredictable route. Neither money nor fame motivate her. Challenges, yes. “I like the sense of urgency and panic that you feel when you’re doing a show. I live off it.” But there’s something else. The roles that interest her have to bring her a feeling of affiliation. “For me, a family situation that works is the greatest thing in the world. I think families of artists are wonderful.”

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