André Forcier has approached Roy for parts in previous films, but delays in production caused by financial difficulties have always prevented it happening. Céline had a part in Le vent du Wyoming, and had to turn down a role in another Forcier film due to scheduling conflicts.
Éric’s Story
After finishing his secondary schooling at the age of 17, Éric Bruneau started to study theatre at the Further Education College in St-Hyacinthe. Although he enjoyed it, after a year he had second thoughts about his career path and switched to a science course, which he didn’t like, as he found he missed the theatre. The following summer he travelled round Europe for 4 months with a friend, and on his return enrolled in the National Theatre School, where at the time he played Albert he was still in the third year of his four year course.
At the end of his first year at the National Theatre School he took part in a 4-man show for children << called The Adventures of Captain Dubord, trivia-lovers >> on the Mille Îles River at Laval, where the audience followed the performance in rubber dinghies. (He says that every time the show passed Céline Dion’s house, no-one was listening to them any more.) André Forcier and his son Renaud were in the audience at one of these performances, and that’s where he spotted Éric, and came to congratulate him.
Forcier invited Éric to audition for the part of Albert while he was still at the Theatre School, despite the fact that students are not allowed to work professionally during term-time before the completion of their course. His elation at landing the role was soon dampened by remembering the ruling, but he got special dispensation from the director Denise Guilbault. << RDO stops awhile to ponder the fact that this is not the first time that a personable young male actor has been the subject of some judicious rule-bending on the part of a lady director of NTS; cf Michèle Rossignol in 1986 – viv >> Since the students don’t cover cinema until their final year, Éric was completely unprepared for the pressure of taking on a leading film role (he’s in almost every scene), but after catching up this summer on his missed studies, his experience will ensure that he’s ahead of class in his 4th year!
Éric on Roy : “I didn’t expect Roy Dupuis to be so generous. He was a good coach for me, always available to go over lines. He even came to my hotel room to ask if I wanted to go over the lines we were going to shoot the following day. He could easily have left me to my own devices, but that wasn’t the case. Roy is as generous as he is a good actor. Working with him is like being on an intense training course.”
Location shooting took place in the desert at San Luis, Rio Colorado, Mexico in March 2004 and in the Expo Cité stadium in Quebec City in April. At one point shooting was held up by a sand storm.
The reason for the perplexing ‘perfumed golf-balls’, a snippet released many months ago and cause of much speculation, appears to be due to Jack Dekker’s preference for playing golf in the desert at night. The perfume in question is ambergris.
On Forcier:
He wants to be remembered in 100 years as “a dependable iconoclast”
He seems to have a fascination for the USA; 3 of his 10 earlier films contain the place names Wyoming, Kalamazoo and Baton Rouge.
He has always considered himself outside ‘the system’, and calls his production company Pariah Films, indicating how much of an outcast he feels in an industry where, he maintains, 5 or 6 directors regularly walk off with the bulk of the funding. He himself had to mortgage his house and transport his crew to Mexico on Air Miles to make Les États-Unis d’Albert , and is already writing his next film because he has "to work to save the furniture".
Using the release of Les États-Unis d’Albert as a platform, he spoke his mind on several occasions against ‘the establishment’ calling the people at Téléfilm Canada and SODEC “old ladies”, and denouncing producers and distributors, particularly his own, because there was no trailer prior to Albert’s release, while local blockbuster Le Survenant was trailed for months. He even went on Tout le monde en parle and called Charles Binamé a hack!! He reckons that 40 other directors could have done a Séraphin remake.