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It's been an age since Céline
Bonnier did a talk show. The last time was Chabada with Gregory
Charles, which says it all.
Although Céline Bonnier may
well have the most publicised first name in Quebec and share her life with
Roy Dupuis, the best-known actor of his generation, she doesn't do the
talk-show circuit, telethons, quiz shows or premieres, in short the
prerequisites for paving the way to popularity.
That's why Céline Bonnier is neither as popular nor as famous as Marina
Orsini, Macha Grenon, Sophie Lorain or Pascale Bussières. On the other hand,
Céline is free. Free to go where she likes without being recognized, to turn
down roles and shun TV series, free from constantly having to feed the
rumour and publicity machines.
Her freedom doesn't prevent her from doing a great deal of work. On the
contrary. Her c.v. is a long list of starring roles in series like
Blanche, The Mask, Million Dollar Babies and Nikita, films like
The Assignment, The Sphinx, and shortly The Orphan Muses, not
forgetting dozens of plays with Robert Lepage or the Momentum theatre
company. But put her on a street corner and she disappears into the
background. If by chance people stop to talk to her, it will be to ask the
time.
Most actresses would be offended by making so little impression. Céline is
delighted.
Popularity is a huge disadvantage, she insists. Being anonymous is much more
interesting. Obviously, it's great when people like your work, but I'm wary
of people who find you extraordinary just because they've seen you on TV.
You can be on TV and be completely useless. TV is no guarantee of talent.
Since graduating from the Conservatory of Dramatic Art in 1987, Céline has
avoided the media and its temptations like the plague.
”Céline doesn't have a narcissistic personality. That's rare for an actor,”
says Brigitte Haentjens, who directed her in Je ne sais plus qui je suis.
“Some people are in the business just to be famous,” Brigitte adds. I think
being famous doesn’t teach us much about ourselves, or at least, less than
the wonderful scripts and great characters of theatre.”
No public image then, no plum role in a TV series, barely a couple of
adverts in13 years, a few rare magazine covers, Céline Bonnier is, on the
media front, a big void. She might have been forgotten. But the opposite has
happened, as if her rarity and discretion have fed the demand.
Be it Louis Saïa, Alain
Chartrand, Denis Marleau, Robert Favreau, Andre Melançon or Christian Duguay,
they all offered her a part, often for the sole pleasure of hearing her
play.
The musical analogy is not unreasonable. Céline Bonnier has long wanted to
be a musician. She has a degree in music from Laval University to prove it,
but above all she has an ear. She can produce with great accuracy an accent,
a tone of voice, the social flavour of a conversation. Part of her talent
lies in her ability to listen and imitate faithfully. The rest of it comes
from her ability to let herself go. When she puts her trust in a director,
nothing can stop her. She doesn't hesitate to push herself to the limit,
even if it means looking dishevelled, distraught, exhausted on screen.
In The Assignment, Christian Duguay put her in front of the camera
totally nude for a long love scene which he eventually cut. Céline did it
without protesting. “I trusted Christian completely, knowing that my nudity
wasn't gratuitous. There was a reason for it.”
As soon as Céline gets into character, all her reservations dissolve. She
brazenly reveals the faults, the illnesses, the blemishes and bruises on the
souls of the characters she plays. Through them, we know everything that
Céline hides about herself.
She does it with so much spontaneity and conviction that you can't tell
where the actress ends and the character begins. This is the case in the
series Tag, where Céline plays the role of Mélanie Jobin, a poor,
mixed-up, drug-addicted mother of three. The character is light-years away
from Céline herself, who has no children, no taste for getting smashed, and
whose past is that of a good little girl brought up by Quebec nuns.
As a teenager, instead of going out and letting off steam with her friends,
Céline stayed home practicing scales on her flute for hours. Despite that,
on screen you get the impression that she's been Mélanie all her life.
As soon as the camera starts rolling, Céline Bonnier no longer exists,
swallowed up by the character which consumes her completely. As soon as the
camera stops, she shuts off along with it and sinks into anonymity like a
warm bath.
It’s said that Céline is the queen of metamorphosis. A redhead one day and a
blonde the next, she’s always reinventing herself with the compulsion of a
chameleon. So much so that when she turned up at the cafe on Rachel Street I
didn't recognise her at first and then I thought she was Sylvie Leonard.
There is something deeply disorientating about meeting Céline Bonnier. Her
characters have made such an impact on the subconscious that for a moment
you don't know who you're dealing with. You study her small, pale face
looking for where she hides the profusion of passionate or painful emotions
which possess her when she's acting, and don’t find any. Even her mother
doesn't always understand her daughter. “She was so nice when she was a
little girl,” she often says.
Céline Bonnier comes from a
family of eight children, without doubt one of the last big families in
modern Quebec. She was born on the 31st of August 1965 in Lévis.
Her father, Irénée Bonnier, was the Liberal member for Taschereau under
Bourassa from 1972 to 1976. The family was liberal, cultured, musical, and
practising Catholics.
Knowing that, you understand a little better why Céline is so convincing
when she plays whores, drug addicts, exotic dancers and unfit mothers. These
roles are just so many taboos which she allows herself to break, if not in
real life, at least onscreen.
”There’s a sort of sanction in these roles,” she admits, “a sanction that I
don't always allow myself in daily life. Until high school I serious,
studious and rigid. At the Conservatory of Dramatic Art I was asked to break
that rigidity. I worked very hard at it, and it seems to have put me in
touch with my deep, repressed desire for rebellion.”
According to Céline there is a strong tendency for rebellion in the Bonnier
family. One of her brothers, a doctor, was expelled from the University of
Montreal for having too big a mouth. Her brother Bernard, one of three
musicians in the family, took a malicious pleasure in deconstructing music.
Céline worked with him in the theatre for a long time. They were very close
until his death from a heart attack some years ago.
Today, Céline lives on the Plateau. She cycles, and at 35 has just bought
her first condo. Her relationship with Roy Dupuis remains a mystery which
she discusses with practically no-one, even though they've been together for
about 7 years.
"You have to understand her," says Genevieve Lefebvre, who directed her this
summer in Le Ciel sur la tête. "Céline is at one in the same time a
woman, an actress, and Roy Dupuis' girlfriend. You couldn't find a heavier
karma than that."
On this subject, Céline gives everyone the same answer, which she always
sticks to. If her boyfriend was called Joe Blow, no one would want to talk
about it. Next question.
Producer Lyse Lafontaine worked
with her last summer during the filming of The Orphan Muses. She
tells how, on a film set, Céline is a shining example of good behaviour,
concentration and punctuality. "Nothing is ever complicated with her," says
the producer before adding, "in fact, I believe that she's someone who's
just completely at ease with herself."
At ease with herself. It's difficult to imagine that this woman who can
portray darkness and despair so well on screen can in real-life be a model
of corny, candy-pink well-being. And yet, on examining her relationship with
fame, you see that you would have to be inwardly strong and quite
well-balanced to withstand the spotlight the way she has.
The actress confirms this in her own way by explaining that thanks to her
education and the love she received, her desire to be famous is not great.
"I don't need to play the
Olympic Stadium to reassure myself, but on the other hand I need to know
that what I'm doing helps others to understand human beings, their ways of
working and the complexity of their emotions."
Over the next few weeks we shall have plenty opportunity to see her at work.
At the same time, Céline will be somewhere in Corsica, free and even more
anonymous than she is in Montreal. With a freedom of mind and movement that
the other Céline will never be able to appreciate. << Presumably a reference
to the rather more famous Céline Dion – viv>> |