La Femme Nikita’s Roy Dupuis: The Cure for the Common Man
LFN’s Roy Dupuis. Mysterious, Sexy & Single. TV’s coolest covert agent is a man of steel with a heart of gold. BY: LAURIE SUE BROCKWAY Intense, Calculating, controlling, cold and OH SO HOT!
As Michael in the hit USA series LFN, Roy Dupuis portrays a character who exudes a brooding intensity and raw sexuality. Shrouded by an aura of dark mystery, possessing almost superhuman strength, Michael is always in control. He dodges bombs, crawls out of car wrecks and gets hit by bullets, yet he seems immune to everything, ESPECIALLY EMOTIONS. His only soft spot appears to be for Nikita, his trainee and student. Although it is Michael’s job to manipulate Nikita into performing unpleasant deeds for Section One, a gentleness that sometimes accompanies his demands suggests he’s quite fond of her. And fondness is strictly taboo in Section One, the ruthless and clandestine government agency that Michael and Nikita both serve.
The connection between M and N is a sensual cord that runs through the high action drama. The two are fiercely independent single characters who find solace in one another as they fulfill their duties to the devious Section One every Sunday Night at 10pm on the USA Network.
BAD BOY OR GOOD ACTOR?
Dupuis may play a bad boy with a mission, but in real life he is a thoughtful and engaging man. While Michael never smiles, Dupuis has a great sense of humor. And if Michael is calculating, Dupuis plans his life with great joy and pleasure. Just as LFN is billed as "The cure for the common show" Dupuis is a delightful departure from the average actor. Born in Ontario and raised in Quebec, he speaks with a deliciously lilting French accent and has a definitively French cultural sensitivity. He gave great thought to every question posed by Single Living, and took the time to clarify anything that might have been misunderstood in cultural translation.
FAME BEYOND LA FEMME
American audiences first became acquainted with Dupuis when he starred in Million Dollar Babies, the story of the Dionne Quintuplets. He also had a role in the Peter Weller film Screamers. And he stars with Rutger Hauer in Hemoglobin, due to be released this year. The role that has most changed Dupuis’ life (and made hanging out in public difficult) is that of Villa, the lead in Les Filles de Caleb. Playing Villa in the romantic, artsy 20-episode series, Dupuis won Best Actor at Cannes and was catapulted to Canadian star status.
INTERVIEW:
Single living (SL): Your character Michael is a professional killer with a heart. It’s remarkable the way he faces his work without fear, even fixing his own bullet wounds. You play him like an extraordinary man who is made of steel. Do you see him like that?
Roy Dupuis (RD): Well I see Michael as a kind of ghost compared to normal human beings. He has to be able to kill anyone if it is demanded. He’s been doing that for a long time. I guess he doesn’t care anymore about the things normal humans do. So, I feel I’m a little like a ghost.
SL: Ghost as in shadow of a person?
RD: Yeah. He has no emotion. He doesn’t really care for anything.
SL: Yet he seems to have a connection with Nikita.
RD: Because she’s probably the only pure thing around him.
SL: Does Michael have any history? Is he single? Ever Married?
RD: He was married once.
SL: Did he kill his wife?
RD: She was an operative. There is an episode where she was on a mission he was supervising. There was trouble, and she didn’t come out of there. Since that day he’s been a bit colder.
SL: So he shut down?
RD: He really learned quickly. But we found out in that episode that she wasn’t killed. She was just a prisoner for two years and was tortured. Nikita finds her and Michael tries to get her out of there, but she’s not herself anymore. All she wants is vengeance, to get even with the guy who tortured her. She traps him somewhere and dies with him without my character being able to do anything about it. So yes, he was married once.
SL: Where does he hail from?
RD: I don’t really know. I think he comes from a rich family. Probably too rich, and he didn’t see his parents much. And he probably did some very bad things too. I like to think I have made up my own story, but I don’t want to reveal it, because I like mysteries.
SL: Women love bad boys and your character is...
RD: A GOOD bad boy.
SL: How close are you to Michael? Are you at all like him?
RD: I think I’m pretty far from Michael and the coldness of his character. But I am playing him with my own sensibility. I play with him and with the understanding that I have of his character and instinct, because there is a lot of instinct in that character.
SL: Michael is so in control. He seems to think everything out and have an answer for everything. Are you that type of guy?
RD: I’m a curious guy. I used to study sciences like physics and chemistry. I like to read about where the human conscience is at right now. I like the scientific sides of nature, not logic.
SL: Is it the intangible, spiritual side of life that interests you?
RD: Yes.
SL: I love that stuff too. I could sit there for hours just...
RD: Talking about philosophy.
SL: Yeah just wondering how things work in the universe.
RD: Yeah.
DUPUIS’ PLANET
SL: I hear you love working on your 1840 farmhouse in Montreal.
RD: Yeah, this is new for me, all new. I’ve been looking for this house for 6 years. It’s the land, too, as much as the house. I think it’s the best move I’ve done in my whole life-buying myself a part of the planet. It brings you down to the real things. It took me a while to figure out what that feeling was, but when you walk on your land, it’s like you have a little planet of your own, and it leads you into deciding how you want your planet to be. And of course I enjoy the stars and the wind and temperatures and everything.
SL: Is your home your hideaway?
RD: Being an actor, I found that I needed something concrete to manipulate and fashion at my own will and see the results right away. The house is like that for me. For the painter it would be...
SL: ...the canvas?
RD: Yeah, that’s it. I’m working on textures and colors. I also have this project of a very modern intelligent glass house that I want to build just beside the old house. When I say modern I mean ecologically and technologically, something that heats itself and everything.
SL: That’s interesting, a glass house. Does that mean part of you is willing to have people see inside you that intensely.
RD: No... I want to be able to look outside. That’s why I stay in the country. I don’t see anybody from my land.
SL: You want to view the world but from your own domain?
RD: Well, I guess I want people to look at me too. But I am very known in my country, Quebec, so it is hard for me to do what I like, just walk outside and stuff like that. I’m kind of a shy person. It made me more shy to be so observed.
SL: You seem like a very intense and aware person. When you’re on your planet, in your house, what do you think about.
RD: It depends. The city life stops for me when I am there. There are-- how do I say that?-- 3 ways of timing life. There’s a fast lane, medium lane, and a slow lane. At my place I’m more in the middle and slow ones. I like to look at stars, and I like to read about philosophers, and then I think about the house. I’ve been there only for a year, so I’ve taken a year to just think about it before doing anything. The date when I will start working on it is pretty close, so that is mainly what I think about right now. The materials I want to use and the colors. Then there is my girlfriend, I give her all the time I can because I’m not there that often these days. And my friends who sometimes visit.
SL: You can’t go out and party without attracting a crowd, right?
RD: I’ve done a lot of that. I don’t really like to party a lot anymore. I prefer friends and making food.
SL: What is your favorite dish to make?
RD: I don’t have any favorite. I make good, mostly French cuisine. I have this cookbook, Douse, by a French Chef, and I like to do complicated stuff and make it personal.
SL: Do you drink at all? Do you drink wine?
RD: Not anymore, not since two years ago. I’ve dropped that because of a thirst for lucidity.
SL: You must be very clear-headed now.
RD: Sometimes yes. A little bit more than I was. That’s for sure.
SL: What’s your biggest challenge at home on the range?
RD: I’m digging a lake this summer. I have a 2 acre swamp, and I’ll be digging that up.
THE REAL ROY
SL: Are you a poetic, romantic kind of guy?
RD: I have that side, yes. I like grand things and I like small things too. It depends on how I feel.
SL: Are you a loner?
RD: I’ m kind of a loner. I don’t have that may friends. I have 2 very good, good friends.
SL: So, someone has to really get to know you and prove their friendship?
RD: Since [I’ve become] very known, like I told you, for the last 6 or 7 years, it’s been complicated to make new friends. Because you never know.
SL: You can’t trust what people want from you?
RD: Well it’s not even the trust. It’s like they think they already know you!
SL: They think you are the character you play?
RD: Yeah, so I stick mostly with the same people I used to know.
SL: A cliched American question, but what is your astrological sign?
RD: Taurus.
SL: Ah, Taureans are supposed to be very practical, Taurus is the bull...
RD: It’s not a bull, it’s a Taurus. They have a little more pride than a bull.
SL: Oh, it’s not just any old bull, it’s a Taurus bull. But that’s also an earth sign.
RD: I’m very down to Earth. I like to be.
NOT THE MARRYING KIND
SL: Have you ever been married?
RD: Nope. I don’t believe in marriage.
SL: Do you mind if I ask why?
RD: Marriage comes from religion, so you can make love to a woman under the eyes of God. Today it’s like a contract, politically and economically. I do not feel the need to bring a relationship down to a piece of paper. I mean I can be faithful.. I AM faithful when I love. Love is more important than marriage to me. I stay with the person I love.
SL: I totally respect that. I have done that myself.
RD: With time I have learned to invest myself in pleasures that are long term, not small pleasures that can hurt..
SL: You mean like one night stands?
RD: And other things too.
SL: Sounds as if you’ve gained a certain wisdom and maturity about being in relationships and being respectful. Is that what you mean?
RD: Yes, we are the other person. I think we are part of one thing, which is human kind.
SL: So, love is a state of oneness that you don’t need a contract for?
RD: Love is it’s own contract. I don’t want to bring my relationship down to an economic level or to the law. It’s between me and her.
SL: Marriage doesn’t guarantee anything these days anyway!
RD: Not anymore. People marry for what, security? To put their love in a box and say okay. And how can you say to someone, Today I will love you forever? This is a lie right away. You don’t know what you’re going to be in ten years. So to base your love on a lie or your marriage on a lie is not correct.
SL: I’m with you on that.
RD: It’s like saying Today I die. I will not change anymore.
SL: Am I hearing a little existentialism in there?
RD: I don’t know...maybe.
SL: Existentialism is about living each day to its fullest and being in the moment. In many ways all we have for sure is the present moment.
RD: Because nothing else exists. You may think tomorrow exists...but I think it’s better to live as close to the present as possible.
SL: Is that what makes you a good actor?
RD: I think that’s something I learned about acting too. To be there.
ON ACTING
SL: When you are "in that moment in front of the camera, are you living in the character’s life, or in Roy’s life as he plays the character.
RD: It depends on the scene, mostly. If the writing and the situation are strong enough to make me forget and to inspire me to be the character, it happens sometimes. I call it a moment of magic. Sometimes you are there and only there. But to see that it happens you have to still be conscious of it.
SL: You have to stay awake?
RD: Acting is like a sponge you know. If you soak yourself into this world before shooting, and then you squeeze out what you’ve learned while you are shooting, you just let go of what you think is good at that time. And you release information and feelings and pictures--real pictures, views of life.
SL: That takes a lot of trust and confidence doesn’t it?
RD: Yes, It is based on that.
SL: And you have to trust the person you are acting with.
RD: It’s the only way I can work, with trust in the other.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
SL: What’s a typical workday like?
RD: I’m on the set 14- 16 hours. I don’t even live in my house during the week, because we’re shooting in Toronto. I take the plane home every weekend, it’s a one hour flight.
SL: Do you have a small singles-pad apartment to stay in during the week?
RD: That’s it. Very simple. I don’t like to waste money on it because I really don’t need much.
SL: LFN’s Section One is 500 feet underground. You must feel like you’re really underground when you work that many hours?
RD: I guess so, yes. It’s not hard to put ourselves in that situation! Sometimes in the winter we don’t see the day at all.
SL: Do you eat at home in your small apartment?
RD: No, mostly I eat on the set because we arrive at 6 in the morning and get out at 10 or 11 [P.M.] They pick me up and they drive me home.
SL: No time to socialize?
RD: No, it’s a little bit like not living for a while except on weekends. It gets complicated to see friends and stuff like that.
SL: When you are not in a relationship, are you still the type of person who can spend a lot of time alone?
RD: I’ve changed a lot in the two years since I stopped drinking and going out, so I don’t know. I can be at my home alone. Like I said, it’s my time and I have a lot to think about and do. I don’t get bored, and I’ve got my computer and the Internet.
SL: I don’t suppose you’d reveal you’re codename?
RD: Nope!
SL: What kind of stuff do you look at and do on the Net?
RD: I like astrophysics and astronomy. I’m an audiophile--I’m into music. I search any question I have. Sometimes I just go and talk with people about anything.
SL: Do you write at all?
RD: I did start a screenplay last year, but I haven’t had the time to keep it going. Sometimes I get back to it. I’ll probably finish it one day.
SL: You just finished shooting HEMOGLOBIN...Did you have fun?
RD: It was fun. It was my first horror film. It’s the story of this guy who has this disease that nobody knows, and he’s about to die, so he’s done everything he could. He goes back to his ancestors’ island to see if anybody has heard of his disease and finds his family. It’s a thriller, so I don’t want to give the end away, but it’s very special.
SL: Will Michael and Nikita ever consummate their affection for one another?
RD: That’s a surprise too!