Strange
interview room
Intense
concentration
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Comments overheard before the actual interview begins:
PL- Your hand is shaking.
RD- Interviews make me nervous.
PL-More since you stopped smoking?
RD- Yeah, more so.
PL- Roy Dupuis, welcome to Franc-Tireurs.
RD- Thank you.
PL- When one thinks of Roy Dupuis, one thinks of rivers. Why rivers, why
not baby seals, Kyoto, or world famine?
RD- Maybe because I come from Abitibi, because it’s something I know,
nature, the wild environment. For me, it’s not just the rivers but also
the whole environment and that includes the people in that environment
as well.
<< PL asked him to explain why the Rivers Foundation has a problem
with Hydro-Quebec.>>
RD- Because Hydro-Quebec is there for the good of the Quebecois, but it
is managed like a private company. That is, profit above all. But
Hydro-Quebec is, in the end, ours. It’s important to remind people that
we must keep encroachment on the environment to the absolute minimum
necessary. And that’s definitely not the case with the Rupert. It’s not
me who will save the rivers. I can no longer accept that to save the
rivers is just because I want it to happen. No, it’s for all the
population together to decide what to do with them.
<< PL then quotes the article by Alain Dubuc from La Presse in
2006, which was critical of artists who speak publicly about things on
which they are not experts.>>
RD - …He forgets that I speak as only a part of a Foundation, an
organization that is comprised of specialists.
<<PL says he appreciates what the Foundation does, he finds it admirable
but “I look at the numbers”…The excess energy demands of Quebec are 1%
per year, that’s 10 % in 10 years. ”What do you say to that?”
RD says that he learned from a retired Hydro-Quebec executive that
Hydro-Quebec invests $20,000 per household to install geothermic
systems. They could do it at half the cost they employ for dams. For the
Romaine Project, for example, eight billion dollars to produce 1900
megawatts.>>
PL – So your plan is to make each citizen, what, autonomous in
deciding about energy?
RD – We can no longer construct installations that are not
self-sufficient. We have the tools to do this.
PL – In the end, the problem is us, we’re over consuming? We buy more
and more things that require more and more electricity. For a guy like
you, it’s easier to target Hydro-Quebec. But it’s much harder to target
your public.
RD – Yes…
PL – So we’re the problem.
RD – Well, yes but the great majority of people weren’t up to date,
didn’t have the tools they need to economize, until today. With the
Internet, with the tools we have now, information circulates. So that
helps them to make their own decisions. So then, it’s almost impossible
to withhold information, to keep people ignorant.
<<Commercial Break>>
PL – You know that celebrity is a double-edged sword; on the one
side, you can get attention for the Rivers Foundation, but on the other
side, one gets the impression that it does not sit well with you. After
the La Femme Nikita years, you said that you’d had a permanent
dose of overexposure. That caused you to lose your desire to go out in
public. Are you feeling better about your celebrity today?
RD – <sighs> It’s still something that is a strain on me. It’s
really the word that tires me. It’s not possible for me to go for a walk
in the city for more than two hours, or else I get exhausted.
PL – Because everyone is watching you.
RD – You feel like you’re being observed. People come up to speak to you
as well. They are polite and all, but…I can’t…It’s no fault of theirs
but… for me, yes, it’s like I’m on a little stage. When it started, it
first happened…overnight…
PL – That was brutal.
RD – Yes, yes. That’s for sure it was a shock.
PL – With Les Filles de Caleb?
RD – Yes, then…it was really weird because I came from a little town,
Amos, Kapuskasing…around the age of 12-14 yrs…everyone knows you and you
know everyone. When I came to Laval, Montreal, in the Big City, there
was this freedom, anonymity in the city that I had that I lost
overnight. It’s a pain, as they say: ‘it’s a bore’, but that’s the way
it is, that’s all.
PL – But, in your case in particular, a Quebec actor usually can live
with that but he can go to another country and he can find peace. You,
since La Femme Nikita, would you say it took away your freedom?
It has been shown in fifty countries, even though it’s no longer
filming, it has scores of fans all over the Net.
RD – Yes, it’s a bit like that. That is to say, I can never be sure that
I won’t be recognized. One would like to take a break, on the spur of
the moment, my girlfriend and I, and we search for a country. I used to
like to go to Cuba, on ‘standby’, I used to but I can’t anymore. <laughs>
I would like to do the ‘Touristy Things’. I couldn’t attempt it. We
decided to go to Costa Rica. When we arrived the Customs Officer
recognized me. I can’t go there anymore. There’s always more or less
that possibility. I can’t say for sure if, generally, somebody might
recognize me somewhere. But, it’s not like here, that’s for sure.
PL – When you have that kind of attention,
how do you manage to avoid being rude or too aloof?
RD – <laughs> I remember how my Mother brought me up. I remain a
polite person, just remain myself. I try to be myself…I’ve also
learned…it’s easier to say ‘yes’, more complicated to say ‘no’. If I go
into a bar for a drink, this could happen, has happened… Guys see me and
say: “ Ah, Roy Dupuis, have a drink.” Then there’s the possibility of
trouble. You saw the big fight in Les Filles de Caleb?
PL – Yes.
RD – That’s it. Well, that’s what could happen with me. To be honest,
they try to plant one on me! That’s the nature of guys sometimes.
PL – With a guy who is famous…
RD – They can read things into what you say or do sometimes, a bit…
PL – Regarding women – the Royettes, the U.S. fans especially.
RD – They’re not just the Royettes…
PL – Well, but they are among the most passionate…
RD – Oh yes?
PL - I think yes. I read an article about them in a magazine, these
women fascinated with you, who follow you, they don’t even speak French
– they take French lessons to understand your films, they come to
Quebec…speak to me about that – this adulation of women for a Quebec
artist – it’s a rare thing.
RD – I have met them at functions when I started making personal
appearances for charities. It’s not something that happens every day.
It’s very well structured. There are organizers and there are rules.
PL – Rules?
RD – Yes, rules they follow and rules I follow also.
PL – Seriously?
RD – Yes well, I can’t…at these occasions I mustn’t show more attention
to one than another, they can’t make certain overtures, yeah…so, it’s a
micro-society.
PL – It’s a double-edged sword for you, ‘cause on the one side the
Royettes, the fans, fund your Foundation. For example, your Halifax Film
Festival Award was auctioned and raised $20,000.
RD –
Yes, they often thank me for getting them involved in supporting the
environmental cause.
PL – Do you think, in your case that celebrity sometimes gets you
down? How do you view it today?
RD – It changed my life. It’s clear.
PL – Do you have regrets sometimes?
RD – <long pause> …It’s for sure, to lose freedom, is not fun.
Yes, but it’s like saying I regret my first love! <laughs> At
first, to be unknown and overnight to become a celebrity…You can’t go
out with your friends, can’t walk down the street…I didn’t know what to
say...
like
Noam Chomsky, I did not feel worthy of celebrity... I felt during interviews: ‘I have nothing important to say,
nothing earth-shattering to say, nothing to aid society.’
PL – Were you almost “Jack Bauer”?
RD – Almost, but it’s really not a big deal. Listen, I just didn’t do
it.
PL – OK. When an actor doesn’t get a series he was rumoured to get, is
it the fault of the actor for being too political, too involved in
politics?
RD – For me that’s a personal choice. Some actors just want to tell
stories, some want to tell important stories, to do their best. There
are benefits also, like clearly showing – revealing tyranny. (He is
referring to Shake Hands with the Devil)
PL – There is pain in that?
RD – For me, personally? Well, here we are free; you realize we’re so
lucky…
PL – I’ve read that you are difficult to interview – you are closed,
reticent. I don’t find that at all – you appear to be open and easy.
RD – Maybe, it’s due to the questions, if they interest me or not.
<<Commercial Break>> |
