“As long as I can walk, I film” – Roy Dupuis

Roy Dupuis shares top billing with Céline Bonnier in Truffe, a film that he loved making.  But now, having rolled out 6 feature films and a stage play in the course of a year, he needs to rest and regain his strength.  He is taking the opportunity to prepare for his trip around the world ….

In Kim Nguyen’s Truffe, the actor plays the owner of a snack bar in the Hochelaga district who prospects for truffles, those mushrooms that have an extremely high market value.  It’s a strange world (I won’t reveal the surprises), mixing various genres.  Did this give rise to a ‘film set of the absurd’? 
“Not that much.  Seen from the outside, yes, but for the actors it was almost hyper-real.  You had to believe it.  Certainly hysterical laughter broke out from time to time. But I tried to believe in it!”

The actor claims to have been inspired by the atmosphere of 1984.  “The hard existence, the fact that you had no future, the working class …. Certainly my character drops to a different level in the game at a point in time.  Otherwise the role that I had to play needed a very realistic treatment.”

It wasn’t so long ago that Roy Dupuis labelled his character in Un été sans point ni coup sûr as ‘boring’.  How does he describe the one he plays in Truffe? 
“Actually, the media didn’t understand what I meant.  The man I was playing was the most boring that I’d ever had to play, which was precisely what made it an interesting role,” he corrected.  “In Truffe, he’s a guy who takes his job as a supplier seriously.  That would be me in that situation, and so that was how I played him.”

When it’s suggested that this type of film isn’t to everyone’s taste, he protests.
“I see a serious side to it, an excellent social commentary.  It indirectly denounces exploitation by big corporations – the Wal-Marts that are in the process of destroying all other business – and it’s also a comedy and a fantasy.  Which to my mind means there’s something for just about everybody,” he argues.  “It’s like a cross between Brazil, 1984, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.”

Roy Dupuis does a lot of films with Céline Bonnier.  Is it difficult for the couple to keep work and private life separate? 
“The difficulty doesn’t come from working with Céline or not.  It comes from the story you have to tell, the people you work with, the entire set, the working conditions … Céline and I met on a film set.  Each time we work together we approach it like two actors in collaboration.  Certainly a barrier has already been overcome.  We can do love scenes more easily.  We know each other and trust each other, so everything is simpler …” <<Seems like he answered the question he was expecting, not the one that was asked – viv>>

In almost all his films, he has at least one love scene.
“The one in Truffe was very easy to do.  It was stylised, it was choreographed.  What’s more difficult, when you have done a lot, is to find a new way to do a kissing scene.”

His career is going very well, but what about the USA?  Has he had any offers from Uncle Sam?
“Yes, but I didn’t go; I couldn’t.  I was working on other projects.”  When asked if he wants an international career, he replies, “I don’t see any interest there at the moment.  I really don’t use the word ‘career’!  I have scripts on the table at home.  I read them.  If I want to do them, ‘let’s go!’  But I don’t have a career. That doesn’t interest me.  I’m an actor, I take on roles.  I’m not a careerist, I’m an actor.”   He goes where the fancy takes him.  “Some years ago [in 1998], Yves Simoneau called me to ask if I wanted to be ‘killed’ by Marlon Brando in his film [Free Money].  It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it part, but I loved it.  I was happy, because Brando is a gentleman I have great respect for.” <<the actual words he uses are “I played a door-knob”!! – viv>>

Recently Roy Dupuis found himself in Argentina shooting a Ken Scott film, Les doigts croches.
“We were there almost two months, but I wasn’t well.  I was ill the whole time.  It started with flu, then it became pneumonia, then bronchitis … Everyone fell ill.  As soon as I began to recover, I caught what the others had.  I was at the end of my tether!  It was the 6^th film in a row I’d done that winter, in addition to the play Blasté.  Add to that the death of my mother … I think my body couldn’t take any more.  For me, as long as I can walk, I film.  Otherwise I would have sunk the film.   ‘The show must go on’, that’s part of the ‘game’!”

At the moment he is unwinding completely.
“I needed to!  At the moment I’m on holiday!”  And though there are projects in the air for the autumn, he’s not thinking about them at the moment.

The only big project in his calendar is the round-the-world voyage he is going to take, with his partner, in two years’ time. 
“I needed 4 years preparation.  I began to plan the trip 2 years ago.”

Once gone, the couple don’t know when they will return. 
“We’ll go south, through the Panama Canal, on to the Galapagos Islands, making a little detour to Easter Island, weather permitting.  Otherwise we’ll go to French Polynesia.  From there, we’ll see ….  Either we’ll go down to New Zealand, Australia and then on up to Asia, or we’ll go up to Asia and on to Australia later.  After that, there’s Africa, India, China …” he lists enthusiastically.  “I’ve never been involved in a more invigorating project.”

There is still a winter’s worth of work to be done on the boat before it is ready to go on the water.
“I’ll take a camera, but not to film myself.  I may get some films out of it.  I have some ideas about documentaries.  Every time I’ve travelled somewhere I’ve met people who were themselves actual stories, I’ve seen events and places I would have loved to have been able to film.”

At the same time he continues to renovate his period house.
“Every year I do a little work on it.  At the moment I’m doing more on the boat, but the house, it’s home, it’s still going to be there when I come back.”

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