At 38, the actor is taking stock of his life. He tells us how psychoanalysis is helping him to understand himself better. He is making time for himself, his girlfriend, and his friends and family.

Roy Dupuis confides : I’m not afraid of growing old.
Roy Dupuis has returned to Quebec. In recent months, after more than four years of continual absences to film the TV series Nikita, he has re-established a pace of life more akin to his aspirations. He has regained his world and his friends, and especially himself. Radiant and relaxed the actor, who recently took part in Défi-Vision (a competition organised by Foundation Mira), answered our questions freely.

Roy, is your involvement in Nikita well and truly over?
Yes. I just have to do the dubbing for France and Quebec.

Was it a good experience?
(He hesitates) Yes ….

Why do you hesitate?
Four years is a long time. It’s several years of my life. It’s a lot of coming and going. But the gang were great. That made it worth doing.

What are your plans, apart from your commitment to The Last Chapter, the series about bikers?
I know that this news has been announced, but I haven’t signed anything yet. I don’t want to say any more other than that it will probably come about …

Since your return to Quebec have you been able to make the most of your house in the country?
To tell the truth, that’s all I’ve been doing.

How do you intend to spend the summer?
I’m going to make alterations to the house. I’m about to do some renovations and to make it bigger; to build an extension - a barn or small chapel, you might call it. I say a ‘barn’ to describe the atmosphere I want to create. As the house is very old and doesn’t have big rooms, I would like to have a large space with big windows. I want the place to give the impression of being outside inside.

Do you keep animals there?
No, apart from the dogs and a cat.

What have you done since your return from Toronto? Have you been travelling?
I took the whole winter off. I didn’t move because I’ve been on the go for too long. My girlfriend was working so we couldn’t go anywhere. We arranged to spend a bit of time together. These last five years our relationship has been "on and off" as you would say in English. We only saw each other at weekends. So, last winter my main activity was spending time with my friends and family.

Did these reunions go well?
Absolutely!

Do you feel you have rediscovered yourself? While you’re continually on the move it’s easy to forget who you are ..
This winter I really adopted a different pace. I decided to give myself some time, to forget about work, to think only about what I wanted to do from day to day, to drop everything, to let the dust settle! I let everything that had happened in the past four years settle down so that I could see where I was heading for.

And where do you want to go?
I’m going to start by building my extension. Then, probably, The Last Chapter. After that, we shall see…..

Do you want to spend more of your working time in Quebec?
Yes, for sure. I like it here. I love Quebec. It’s home. When I’m away for a long time I clearly miss it.

What or whom do you miss most?
My friends, my land, my house. But I also miss everything that makes us what we are. We are very distinctive. It’s not just that we speak the way we do. Only we talk about things the way we talk about things. So, it’s only people from around here that can really communicate with me …

With all the subtleties that entails …
Yes. Indeed, only locals can really ‘talk’ to me, in our words, with our humour, our thoughts, our culture. I can’t find any of that anywhere else.

Do you feel out of touch with a part of yourself when you’re away for long?
No, on the contrary. I think it’s very good to go away in order to be able to appreciate where you come from. You have to travel to do that. I think it’s also very good to get to know the world, to see, smell and taste other things. I love to travel, and I would like to do more. At the moment the Himalayas appeal to me for the culture and the mountains. I would also like to go to Nepal and Vietnam before it’s too late. Some day I might go and work elsewhere, but one thing is certain – I’ll return to Quebec.

Would you say that your house has given you a point of anchorage that you didn’t have before?
Yes. A lot of things have happened since I’ve had the house. All that has anchored me, has given me roots and a sense of responsibility. Actually, becoming an adult comes down to becoming responsible for your actions. When I say actions, I mean words too.

Have you become responsible to the point of wanting to have a child?
Yes. It’s in the air. My girlfriend and I are tending more and more in that direction.

How long have you been together?
Quite a while … almost seven years.

How old are you?
38? I was born in 1963, in April; yes, that’s right, 38.

Are you afraid of growing old?
No, on the contrary. At 33 I felt something of a nostalgia for youth. Then I decided to stop drinking. I became a little more responsible (laughing)

Wasn’t it around the age of 33 that you went into therapy?
Yes. In the form of psychoanalysis.

Do you still do it?
Yes, I’m continuing my therapy. I stopped the consultations during the time of Nikita because of my schedule. But this winter I started again in order to work things out.

What do you get from it?
In my opinion everyone should undergo psychoanalysis. It should be as normal as going to the dentist or the hospital. It should be free. Honestly, it could change the world.

Why?
Because psychoanalysis makes everything clearer. It allows us to see what we are, and what has been instilled in us, most often by our parents. The first three years of our life are very important because they determine the way in which we will cope with life and the situations we find ourselves in. It’s as if we have enemies and we don’t know they exist. We all have enemies within us who put spokes in our wheels. And there are also good characters inside us who help us out …. In short, psychoanalysis helps us identify our enemies. And once we can see them we can handle them.

In order to get rid of them?
We don’t necessarily have to get rid of them, but at least we can deal with them because now we know who they are and why they exist.

Without going into details that are too private, can you tell us who your enemies are?
That’s personal. On the other hand I can tell you that psychoanalysis is the best journey I’ve made. It’s a journey through my whole life. It’s fascinating ….

Why?
There are important events that have happened that you have completely forgotten, and that you discover through psychoanalysis. It allows you to remember them, and that’s remarkable. It’s one of the best presents I’ve given myself.

Does it allow you to connect with yourself again?
Better than that. Thanks to it you learn to know yourself, to really know what you like and not what you think you should like. You also learn to understand human mechanisms in general, and that’s no bad thing in my line of work. You have to be inquisitive to do psychoanalysis, you have to want to do it. You have to love life, and to love humanity. All to be more alert, more uninhibited.

Since you are aware of the fact that the first three years are crucial to a person’s development, are you afraid of becoming a father?
No. I intend taking the necessary steps to avoid mistakes, to be an attentive father, and uninhibited with my child.