Everything had started so well: a charming subject (Roy in all his splendour), a little trip to Lanaudiere where Charles Binamé is shooting his promising film (Séraphin for the big screen). But I didn’t bargain for the harshness of the weather. On the morning of D-Day I was stuck in a thick blanket of snow that covered all the surrounding region. Steep slopes and summer tyres, I had to wait for the sander to go by. “It’ll be at least three quarters of an hour.” Panic! My Roy is doing his only two scenes of the day at nine o’clock sharp!
Finally, I get out at Saint-Charles-de-Mandeville at 9:55 and rush off to the golden age Club transformed into a production office for the purpose of the film. Two iMacs, a few hastily furnished rooms, a window covered with a bit of cloth, a bottle of window cleaner lying beside a thermos of coffee …. how glamorous can you get? At last I receive the second map (you would have thought I was going to a rave), the precious key for getting me “up there”, on the actual set. I park between two horse boxes and wade my way (goodness, it’s been raining here!) to the nearest trailer…. where I am told that the scenes have already finished. I’m about to roll on the ground in grief, tearing my hair out when, o shock, Roy himself walks past me in his lovely costume and smiles at me. Hurray, my life isn’t over! He will answer my questions another day, that’s a promise.
HOLLYWOOD, HERE I COME!
Just for the adventure I still “climb” on to the set in one of those vans guaranteed to make one travel sick, wedged between two representatives from Téléfilm Canada (in city shoes, the poor women). After a few minutes in the woods, the vehicle stops at a traditional village which has sprung from nowhere in barely two months, including clearing the forest. Crouching behind a shed with four or five other reckless individuals, I could practically smell the extras. It’s funny, they looked bored. The carts start rolling when someone shouts “Drive”, two children pump water, a little old lady moves forward with her daughter …. The action is happening in the distance: in the church square, Charles Binamé is filming Norman Chouinard and Karine Vanasse. During a pause we are allowed to go up there. At the signal (everybody communicates through earpieces: even “below stairs”, in the catering truck, the girls have one), we again wade joyfully through the mud to hide just behind the camera. One of the poor women from Téléfilm Canada slips and lands heavily on the spongy ground. Ouch!
The first assistant warns us that the scene is “particularly emotional” and that we have to be quiet. OK boss, understood! Dozens of people bustle about, a girl calls: “Silence!” and the scene begins. The actors talk so quietly that you can’t hear anything, the same scene goes to three or four takes, Binamé shouts, “That’s in the can”, the first assistant tells off a poor girl with a cold who has the nerve to cough, and hey! it’s lunch break! Sliding carefully down to the bottom, I leave, quite happy to work in an office, thinking about all these jobs which I never knew existed: the guy who repeats “Silence” like an echo, the woman who makes the cappuccinos just as Roy likes them, the woman who takes the Polaroids of the actors’ look of the day for wardrobe continuity …. Happily I tell myself that evening to restore my morale, nice and cosy in my little bed, that I still have my interview with the beautiful Roy. But ……
CLOSE UP
This long-awaited day, the life-size fantasy of thousands of Quebec women is above all a very tired man. Having got up at 4 in the morning to film The Last Chapter II, he has already got more than 10 hours work behind him and now has to endure an hour of sadistic questions from an evil journalist (yeah, that’s me) before finally being able to go home. Let’s put an end to his suffering!
Faded blonde hair and still very tanned, he sits down opposite me with a cigarette. The same voice, the same look, the same bearing as on the screen, giving the strange impression of being inside his own TV. Good news straightaway: Roy has no intention of leaving Quebec for the moment. He is not ready to repeat the Nikita adventure for the time being. “After five years filming in Toronto for the series, I shut myself away at home. I was no longer able to function in front of a camera. Nikita was rough at times, especially on the love life. And when you are truly in love <<sorry, I don’t quite get the next phrase. Later maybe – ViV>>. That was difficult. I spent four years commuting every weekend. Four years, it’s just two words, but it’s a big deal. Anyway it was for me, because my life was here at home. If it had happened 10 years ago when I didn’t have the house, and wasn’t in the same relationship, it might have been a different story. But there, at my age, I’m settled.
Between a Perrier and another cigarette, we discuss the filming of Un homme et son péché, of which he has nothing but good memories, his “connection” with Karine Vanasse, which didn’t give him any problems, and his pleasure at being reunited on set with the people he likes, such as Charles Binamé and Marina Orsini. “It’s one of the aspects of the job that I like most, the gang. We are pack animals, and it’s apparent at times like these.”
No matter what the question, the tone of his voice always betrays a little weariness. Since interviews “sometimes are a drag for me”, maybe we could speak about something else? Is there something that he would like to tell us about? “Yes, but I’m probably about to do that in a documentary. It’s a subject that fascinates me more and more: the contact that’s never happened between the West and the indigenous American people.” And there, his eyes brighten, his voice becomes animated ….. “They have always been treated like an inferior race, because they were less developed technologically, whereas I am discovering their philosophy, their political system that works by consensus, where the individual is not just a number. The American Indians understood 12,000 years ago – not 2,000! – that ecologically, if you do something to an environment it has repercussions throughout the planet. They saw the Earth as a whole, like a living organism. With the Earth, the notion of ownership doesn’t exist, since it is the creator. You cannot own your creator, you can only respect it and look after it.”
A fascinating subject, perfectly in keeping with him. For once in an interview we learn something other than “the director was nice / my co-stars were too / the sun is shining / the town is pretty / I love my character”! Did you know that the Iroquois have a political system all of their own, a council which was thought to have disappeared in 1794 but which continues, alongside the government that was imposed on them, to elect their chief? “And what is more, chief doesn’t exist in their language. The closest word to chief for the Iroquois is good man.” Without any flattery, I can’t wait to see the fruits of his research on the screen., all the more so because he has been interested in this for a very long time. “When I was young, in Abitibi, the Algonquin reserve was just behind our house, I had friends down there. They were always around until it really came to affect me. I read stuff that makes me bawl. It’s so sad…… “
PROFESSION: WOODSMAN
An interest which goes well with his love of nature (Roy even sponsors the Gatineau River as part of the ‘Adopt a river’ project, which opposes the construction of small private dams) and the actor’s new way of life: 54 acres of land and a house dating from 1840 which he is patiently doing up. “Building is solid, three-dimensional, a passion. I spent my childhood building myself log cabins in the woods. Today I have rediscovered this healthy side after being worn out by the decadence of the town.” Now, the house is almost finished (he worked on it for six years!). No problem, there’s still the woodland and the selective felling to do. “It’s quite incredible, the feeling of walking your own land. It makes you responsible. Planting a tree, too, places you in time. I have planted quite big maples because I want to see them reach maturity. The first ones are 10 years old, but they won’t reach adulthood until they’re 60. You plant them, you look at them, and you say: “60 years … I’ll be 90!” To be grounded in the land is to be grounded in life too. At 39, Roy dreams of starting a family. It’s an important choice which he has taken time to develop, after he had met the woman who shares his life.
In short, the American Indians to film, the land to work, children to raise …. where is the cinema in all this? The fans will be relieved that the actor has numerous films slated for the coming year – notably a feature film by Marc-André Forcier. But in the long term it’s uncertain that he’ll turn up often on the giant posters… “My job is still fulfilling, with this documentary project, for example. I dabbled in directing too, with Nikita, and I liked it. Certainly there are days when I ‘d feel better behind the camera than in front ….. Let’s say that’s where I see myself in the long term <laughs>.” Be brave, ladies, all is not lost. There are still the 10 tapes of Filles de Caleb, the nearest video club, and especially Un homme et son péché to savour in the theatres from 29th November. You will enjoy yourselves thoroughly, trust me: hard hearted or sensitive, no-one will be able to resist so much concentrated emotions. Charles Binamé has absolutely reinvented Love Story, with quality on top!
In the meantime, I put away my tape recorder, Roy puts his dark glasses back on, and the door closes on a final smile. I don’t know much more about him, in spite of my expedition to deepest Quebec and our hour of conversation. But in the end, it’s not that important. Roy, sometimes approachable but still wild, is not tamed. So much the better.