Fire and Ice

On the eve of the release of the film Maurice Richard, Roy Dupuis speaks from the heart; about his status as a sex-symbol, his passion for sailing, the death of his father and the meaning of life. An amazing encounter with the least talkative of actors.

The very first character that Roy played onstage was The Fox in The Little Prince, his favourite book. “I was in nursery school and my mother had made my costume,” he says with obvious pleasure.  “I was the one who said, “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eye. […] Tame me.”

The actor has not changed over the years; even though his often distrustful attitude might lead you to believe otherwise, inside Roy Dupuis there is still a little lad saying “tame me”.  In person, he gives off both a detached ‘I-don’t-give-a-damn’ air and a disconcerting candour.  Sometimes one, sometimes the other.  So much so that in his presence you always feel you are walking a thin line.

Slumped on a chair in an apartment on the Mont-Royal Plateau – a necessity of celebrity, he steers clear of public places -  he is waiting for me and smoking a cigarette. He is not as tall as I imagined.  But his solidly built body radiates a power that is clearly identifiable on the screen. A wide brimmed hat casts a shadow over his green eyes. Sand-coloured cotton trousers, a faded denim shirt open over his tanned skin, his beard exactly right – his look is 100% the Marlboro cowboy.  The hunk from Quebec is visibly very comfortable with his image. “I have a certain charisma. It’s one part of me. Not the whole picture.”  Sex-symbol?  He pulls a face. “Well, yes,  that’s still mentioned sometimes.”  No, it’s mentioned all the time.  In Quebec.  Everywhere.  In the United States, a fan-club of  ‘Royettes’ are devoted to him. And his interpretation of the enigmatic Michael in the television series La Femme Nikita – which required him to live almost full time in Toronto from 1997 to 2001 – has multiplied tenfold the number of his groupies in dozens of countries.

A pause, a sigh.  “People see in me what they want to.  But things are getting clearer; they’re beginning to get to know me better, I think. Maybe because of more personal films, like Manners of Dying or Mémoires affectives (for which he won the Jutra for best actor in 2005). These are the ones that I prefer anyway,” says the veteran of around thirty feature films, twenty television series, and ten stage plays since he graduated from the National Theatre School in 1986, and who, at the age of 42, is soon to play the dazzling Canadiens player, Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard (to be released on 25 November).

Contrary to the legend that surrounds him, Mr Dupuis does speak. A lot. And about a lot of things.  From the recipe for game pie which he cooks faithfully every Christmas, to the meaning of life.  But in his own way and at his own pace.  With him, seconds elapse between two sentences, between two ideas.  He focuses on you without seeing you (he very rarely blinks, which gives him this laser stare – his trademark), submerges within himself, then resurfaces.  The result: a disjointed conversation where your new question comes just as soon as he has finished answering the previous one.  “Introverts rarely express themselves spontaneously.  They need time to convey their thoughts.  In the West we encourage the extrovert style. Too bad, this is how I am,” he concludes, crossing his arms. “So was Maurice Richard.”

The actor declares this in full knowledge of the facts.  In Maurice Richard, he dons the skates of the fabulous number 9 for the third time, having played this role in one of the Heritage Minutes in 1997 and in the TV series broadcast by Radio-Canada in 1999.  Charles Binamé’s film recounts the life of the famous hockey player up to the legendary riot in the Forum in 1957, an event that historians often describe as the first real gesture of national assertiveness by the people of Quebec.

Roy doesn’t play Maurice Richard.  He feels him. “The bulk of my preparation has come from my short meetings with him for the filming of the Heritage Minute.  It was very quick, he didn’t say much, but I got an understanding of the man. In fact, I felt as though I’d known him a long time.”

The same determined jaw, the same fire in the depth of the eyes, the kings of the ice and the screen seemed carved from the same wood. Was The Rocket his alter ego?  Roy takes a deep breath.  “Maurice reminds me more of my father.”  There’s a pause.  “The men of that generation didn’t have an easy life.  They bore the scars, it’s clear.  In those days, for example, the mothers were totally in charge of the children.  For the fathers, it was very difficult to establish a bond with them…”

Over the years, Roy has sometimes reluctantly touched on his complicated relationship with his father.  How was it exactly with an absent father who … ?  “My father was very much at hand,” he cuts in straight away.  “ He was even a ‘presence’; when he came to the house it was some appearance!  He gave the impression of being an authoritarian father, but you had to kiss him on both cheeks before going to bed.  Even when we were older.  He was also a great sportsman, like Maurice.  It was he who encouraged my brother and me to play hockey when we were quite little. He woke us at 5am to go to practice, picking up all the neighbourhood kids on the way."  Silence.  "After my parents separated he was still my father. He insisted on it."

In 2000, when Roy was out of Quebec, he suddenly learned of the death of his father, struck down by a heart attack at the age of 70.  "When I arrived at the hospital I was told, 'It's too late - you can't see him. He's in the morgue.'  But I had to see him, and did everything I could. I finally got to see him, and I swear, he winked at me.  When he felt contented on waking he would wink at me.  And there, in death, he was content .... "  His voice trembles a little. There is a lull in the conversation ....

Roy's father did not pass on his identity problems to his son; the doubts, the reassessments which confront many of the young men of today in no way concern the actor.  "I have had my masculine role models, different but strong.  My father, and also an uncle who was a criminologist, clever, clear-sighted, incredible. He also died too young."

He is certain he will never see them again.  Neither in this life nor the next.  "I'm not a believer.  For me, to have religious faith is the same as giving up. It's like believing a used car salesman.  I've read the whole of the New Testament. To learn what it's about. Christ was a very great philosopher.  But further than that ...."  Roy Dupuis has no need of a 'hereafter' - "Shit, life is fascinating enough. That’s enough for me.”  A pause.  “Until proven otherwise, humans are the only living beings who are aware of their place in the universe. That’s something, isn’t it?”

The former student of the pure sciences resurfaces.  Excited, feverish.  “I love reading scientists like Stephen Hawking, Hubert Reeves … I watch all the documentaries that deal with the advancement of knowledge about the way the world works.”  Off he goes on a high of enthusiasm, juggling the terms chaos, quantum mechanics, infinitely large, infinitely small … “I have software at home that lets me go back 900 million years.  Each point on the screen represents a galaxy, billions of stars. It blows my mind!  It’s sheer poetry.”

The stars are also of interest to this star in the instrument-free navigation course he’s currently taking, to do justice to his latest passion, his sailboat.  Things clicked between them immediately.  “During my first sea trip I physically felt that I was touching the continents in all directions.  That the water I was floating on could take me anywhere.”

And it will; in a maximum of four years from now, Roy will set off on a trip round the world.  “I will have a camera, maybe make a documentary,” he dreams aloud.  His girlfriend will be onboard. “Céline [Bonnier] loves sailing as much as I do. We have already gone through storms in this boat, literally and figuratively.  We make a good team.  On a boat there’s no escape, so it’s make or break. I love it.”

The fact remains that the best journey Roy Dupuis has made was within himself, some years ago during his time in psychoanalysis. Having given up drugs, alcohol – “except for a Château Yquem to accompany the foie gras on New Year’s Day” -  and the rock and roll lifestyle.  “I had gone too far. I had to choose – death or life. I made the choice.”  Therapy helped him to acknowledge his dark side.  “The things we don’t like about ourselves are often related to our fears.”  Such as?  “These are fears that are too profound for me to talk about here.”

There is, however, no problem about confiding what he hated most about filming Maurice Richard.  “Shaving every morning!”  Yet he was delighted with the two weeks spent in Quebec City filming the hockey scenes. “I’ve always been a very good skater,” says he who still plays at centre in an amateur league.  “That was a marathon!  It was all done in a rush, to the point where we were brushing with danger on the ice.  I like danger;  it make me feel more alive.”  For a long time Roy practiced skydiving. “Not any more.  Sailing gives me all possible sensations, from terror to total serenity.”

Until his great departure for the seas of the world, he continues to do up his 19^th century home, situated near the American border, and which he bought in 1996.  “I’ll never sell it.  I would like my children, if I have any, to always be able to come back here and to know where they came from.”  But no world tour is going to change the mind of this Abitibi guy.  This is where he wants to live, this is where he wants to die.  “I’ve travelled enough to know.  I love the Quebecois, I love Quebec.  I need it.”

Maybe it’s this deep attachment which has caused him to turn down, according to rumour, the leading role in the cult series 24?  Indeed, is the rumour true?  “I don’t want to talk about that,”  he objects, ill at ease.  “It’s a let-down for everyone.”  So we won’t talk about it.

Nor shall we talk about his film or TV plans.  “Nothing is signed.”  Nor about a possible return to the theatre, despite the fact that, during his last venture onstage in 1994 in Sam Shepard’s True West, the ruthless critic Robert Lévesque praised him with, “Roy Dupuis is a true thespian.”

In the meantime the star contents himself with appreciating the essentials of life, and with campaigning for the Rivers Foundation which he co-founded, and whose aims are to preserve the waterways from development by small hydroelectric power stations.  “The boat, the house in the country … these days I often remind myself I have a hell of a good life.”

One last time, the ghost of Maurice Richard reappears.  “I love that man.  In real life there are people whose dreams don’t fit them.  They don’t have what it takes to achieve them.  He understood what he was good at and he did it.  Without making speeches, he gave us self-confidence.  I love him because he stuck to his course.”

After years of wandering, Roy Dupuis, too, has obviously found the dreams that fit him. And, at last, his place on the earth.