PL  - With your girlfriend at sea for months, that takes a certain kind of guy. Women talk about what makes a good man – your name comes up all the time. With the same woman for 15 yrs – what’s your secret?
RD – <long pause> …We're not married and that's the way we want it. We don't make promises, we are always totally honest with each other.  I am here with her today but I may not be there tomorrow or next year. I don't know why but...we are still together.
PL – It’s important to be together?
RD – Yes, yes, I want to get old with this woman. But, look, I paid my dues, I did my part, <chuckles> I partied for years. It’s a better life now. I stopped drinking and taking drugs, changed my way of life.

PL – So you said: “Ok, I’m finished with drugs and alcohol.” How do you get out of that boat? What was the sign? What tells you it’s time?
RD – <long pause… big sigh – emotional?> When you are sitting on the window ledge in a hotel room and you want to jump out…for nothing! When I surveyed my life that night, it was…it was not all negative…I had fun, the nightlife, I was curious; I learned about that world, which is good for an actor. I experienced things.
PL – It helps an actor to experience life.
RD – Anyway, like in Molière, there’s a poem about the ‘voyage of life’ – so, but, after a few years…the fun is more and more rare. I became more and more like an addict.
PL – You needed to drink?
RD – Yes.
PL – You needed that ‘Party Life’?
RD – Yes, yes, the fun wasn’t there. My mistake was to keep trying to survive in that world. It is not fun, it is complicated, and it complicated my life.
PL – and the “Wake Up Call”?
RD – If I continued that way I’d die. I had to decide: Did I want to kill myself or not? I had to remind myself I had good reasons to live. I had a good career, good friends…I had to change my way of living.
PL – Not to stop just for the sake of stopping?
RD – No, I had to decide: Did I want to do a “Jim Morrison”? I was young. Did I have a real desire for life? …I decided. I loved life! Yeah…
PL – Do you ever miss that time in your life?
RD – <laughs> Yes, sure, I sometimes miss it, but I don’t have the desire or the energy <laughs> to live like that again but…I can take a drink today.
PL - Really!
RD – Yeah, but I don’t finish the glass. I am against drinking to the point of becoming numb. I don’t like that at all.
PL – You don’t reject it totally?
RD – No, just for me. I don’t like it. I just don’t like the affect it has on me. That numbness – I would miss the experiences, the essence of life. I would not ‘Be There’. It reduces my capacity to enjoy life. Time goes by too quickly. I have too much to do.

PL – It’s funny, we’ve known you for a long time, you are almost 50, well, not almost but…
RD – Yeah, almost 50, it’s coming up quickly.
PL – When you look back – How have you changed?
RD – It’s sure, from time to time, I’ve asked myself that. <laughs> I’m concerned a bit about getting older…I want to explore. I’ve talked to scientists. I want to learn more about the world, to analyze and study, that’s one of the things that I will never really know totally…
PL – You are a private guy who left the city – from being on the stage – far from the city – to build your own house. But it’s not just a house; it’s your home. Tell us how you came to build it.
RD – Yes, it comes from a man very important to me, my uncle, André Thiffault, my mother’s brother, an “adopted father”. I helped him at his place in the country, to shape the landscape, cutting down trees…He had an old house, we worked together – I learned the importance of a home, how to build one, how to express oneself in working with the materials, the wood – to lose your troubles, to have a home you made yourself.
PL – A foundation?
RD – Yes, a base, a foundation in your life. I learned how important that could be in my life. I realized it when I found my own home base (it took me 6 yrs to find it). There was no one watching me – no one telling me what to do – I liked the solitude. I ultimately got back some of the freedom I had lost – so, it’s very important for me.
PL – It’s interesting that you say it is creative to build a house.
RD – Yes, it’s very creative.
PL – It’s not just a building.
RD – No, no, also it’s something I need – to create something on my own – not like with films: You finish your work and it is in the hands of many other people – you view the results and it may not be what you wanted…When you immerse yourself fully in your own creation, it makes you feel good.

PL – It’s strange, before interviewing you I had the impression you were a very tortured guy – but you have the air of a guy who’s ‘super-happy’.
RD – Yes, for sure, I’ve had my times of trouble but, it’s a part of life, it must come sometimes but, at the moment, I want to slow down and I desire to live more simply.
PL – To ease off from the other side of too much sudden change?
RD – No, it's important to change but...not to be simple, but to have a philosophy of simplicity... to invest more in positive causes…
PL – ‘To make hay while the sun shines’?
RD – Yes.

PL – Thank you.
RD – My pleasure.

Fans and sailing were amongst the topics illustrated by clips

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