Roy Dupuis talks about his rock’n’roll past

A guest on Meeting Paul Arcand on CKAC last Wednesday, actor Roy Dupuis spoke about his role in the new TV series The Last Chapter, and about the character of Alexis which he plays on the big screen in A Man and his Sin. He also said a few words about the quiet life he now leads in the country, well away from the city and its night life.

Roy Dupuis doesn’t like talking about himself very much. “I always feel that I haven’t got anything important to say,” he confided to Arcand that morning. The presenter, however, managed to get him to talk about the artificial highs he is said to have indulged in for a while. “You’ve led quite a rock’n’roll life, on the edge, with drugs, alcohol …” Arcand asks. This is what Roy Dupuis revealed to him.

“I come from Abitibi. At 14, when you arrive in Montreal, it’s fascinating. I was inquisitive. The night life, the dark side of the city and of humanity too, attracted me.”

The actor conceded that he had gone pretty far in a lifestyle which according to him resembled a slow suicide. “I could have gone further. I went to my limit,” he told the interviewer.

“I think that I met some good people who brought me to a new level of consciousness so I decided to stop. I also had an interest in life and a career that I loved. That’s what helped me to choose to live.”

Paul Arcand asked him if he had found it difficult to give up the “substances”. The actor replied, “At the beginning it’s not easy because the night life, the substances, are your way of life, of expressing yourself. When you remove all that (and I stopped everything overnight) you lose a lot of your acquaintances. From having dozens of friends you’re left with three or four. You feel dull too, uninteresting. You’ve nothing to do any more, you’re no longer remarkable on account of the drugs or the drink that got you plastered, or different from the rest. So yes, there’s a depression that follows, certainly.”

“And how do you feel today?” the interviewer asked at the end of the broadcast. Roy Dupuis replied, “I feel well, clear-headed. From time to time I will take a glass of wine and as I don’t drink as much as before it hits me a bit and I don’t like that. I don’t like to lose my clarity, quite simply. I would like to try to get through life as clear-headed as possible.”

Thanks to Lucinda for sending us this article