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Photographer deserving special mention: Serge Barbeau. |
Roy Dupuis – an
intimate portrait of a reticent man
From now on you
will have to live on the moon to be unaware of Roy Dupuis and to avoid
this veritable phenomenon of the industry of dreams! A precedent in our
history of the seventh art and the media – henceforth we will approach
him not just a devastatingly attractive physique but as a universally
recognised talent since he has found recognition from beyond our
borders. Alongside his current success in Scoop and Million
Dollar Babies, he is making his return to cinema, his real passion,
in Chili’s Blues.
The Number One star
of the big and small screen resumes his conquest of the public whom he
has never ceased to surprise and delight since his very first
appearances, first onstage and then in the cinema and on TV. The
unforgettable Ovila, Yves and Alex have propelled Roy Dupuis towards a
fascinating popularity. Although still on his way up, he has tamed the
light-headedness that [popularity] brings. You would expect his
schedule to be as full as that of a diva, booked up two or even three
years in advance, with tomorrow and the day after set aside for projects
that his reputation as a hero warrants.
“No, because the diary is constructed every year. I know what’s
coming along, that’s true. It runs through my head, but I do as I do on
a set – I take one scene at a time. I don’t go after comfort and
security. What turns me on are challenges, danger, anything that knocks
me off balance. In acting I want to achieve a sort of vulnerability – I
want to be receptive, open to everything that’s going on around me, and
to have enough self-confidence to make myself vulnerable.”
This fragility is where his strength lies – as for the rest, he
conceals a lot of it.
“I don’t like to talk too much about what I have inside me, as it’s
laying open the tools of my trade.”
It’s true that Roy Dupuis is an unassuming, not to say mysterious
person. The beautiful big cat keeps its claws retracted. In the art of
secrecy, he invites us to see how he uses his secret weapons when giving
us his characters. Roy does not act – he becomes the person he’s
playing, beginning with Pierre-Paul, vacuum cleaner salesman.
All the talent of
Quebecois cinema has been set to work to make Chili’s Blues one
of the biggest hits of the season – and besides, this feature film marks
Roy Dupuis’ return to the big screen. After Jean Beaudin’s Being at
Home with Claude and Michel Langlois’ Cap Tourmente, film
lovers are impatiently awaiting the Roy event. And they can rest
assured they will be delighted. Roy Dupuis is reunited with the big
cinematic family for the shoot of this film by Charles Binamé, whom he
has known since the marvellous adventure that was Blanche; in
particular he shares star billing with Lucie Laurier (Chili) whom he
rubbed shoulders with for several hours when she played the young Émilie
Bordeleau in Les Filles de Caleb. According to producer Louise
Gendron, she sniffed out the actor’s genius during the first few hours
of [shooting] Being at Home with Claude.
Chili’s Blues, a strange love story written by José Fréchette (Le
Père de Lisa, 1987, Les Intrépides etc) unites Pierre-Paul and Chili
in a railway station where the train is at a standstill due to a
snowstorm. Two beings whom chance and the search for love welds
together, with time to confide their anguish, their despair, and finally
their love. A fleeting meeting between a vacuum cleaner salesman and a
suicidal schoolgirl, in 1963, three weeks after the death of John F.
Kennedy.
“Michel Gagné’s (Scoop) look is a bit like mine. Pierre-Paul’s is
that of a man in 1963, who believes in God, who lives in a very
restricted society. Pierre-Paul represents an era, a certain class of
people. He’s an average unskilled worker whose life is mapped out in
advance. He is blinkered – he looks straight ahead and doesn’t want to
be upset. In 1963, good and evil were well defined. The Russians were
the bad guys, and the Americans the good guys.”
In the kingdom of casting against type, Roy Dupuis is the
uncontested master of the hoax. As much as he captivates in the
character of the homosexual assassin, Yves, so he succeeds in convincing
us that he has sold vacuum cleaners all his life, so sincere and
truthful is his look.
“I talked with people who knew that period – Charles Binamé, my
parents. I thought of myself as a believer, a good Catholic, with no
ambition in life. That changes your personality!”
In Chili’s Blues there’s also a crowd of characters, frozen in
time, including two gossips who discuss the invention of tights – a
sweet moment courtesy of Margot Campbell and Francine Ruel –
Marie-Renée Patry as a nun, Pierre Curzi as a station chief particularly
engrossed in his work although not in humanity. In short, a snapshot of
the ‘60s, so outdated in 1994!
If Roy Dupuis regrets
having had to do without holidays during the last six years, (“just
two months were enough for a little bit of travelling”) he has not
been deprived of crossing time periods. Even the theatre has treated
him to some first-class travel (including Romeo and Juliet).
Ovila saw the beginning of the century; Mr Dionne, the Great Depression
(the Dionne quintuplets were born in 1934) and Pierre-Paul brought him
to 1963.
“And it was quite oppressive – I put on my blinkers and had headaches
after my days on the set.”
Does he have to be reminded that he is of the present time, in this
tormented end of the century?
“Yes, I’m very happy to be living in the present time. It’s a quite
unbelievable period if you take the time to analyse it. There’s the
possibility of the end of the human race. Are we going to find a
solution? It sounds as if we’re all expecting a mutant! Things happen
today that have never happened in the whole history of mankind. I love
this end-of-century but I would also have loved to be a medieval
knight.”
Playing with time, with the emotions, becoming somebody else in order to
be believable, that’s the fruit of a constant, enormous labour. Roy
Dupuis offers improvisation and “the unbearable lightness of being”
<<i.e. each of us has only one life to live, and
what happens once will never occur again – the basis of Milan Kundera’s
book of the same name – viv >>. He
gives himself completely, without a thought; he is entitled to be as
demanding of others both in real life and on a film set. Preparation
for a role imposes a great discipline, like that of an athlete. He’s
familiar with the effort. Seven years of cello, a life entirely
dedicated to hockey and almost all other sports, has made him a marathon
runner in his lifestyle.
“Today the instrument is myself, so I use it, and also what I have
experienced. As for the subject, I will say that I have an especially
great interest in the people that I work with. And it takes good health
from the outset to do this job. I can’t be ill, quite simply. And even
when I am, I go on. I look for balance. I amuse myself, I play sport.
Lately I’ve taken up golf, a sport I discovered last year. I love it.
You play golf with your head but it’s also about reaching a certain
level of confidence. If you want to go all out, it doesn’t work. It’s
a bit like acting – there’s no point in forcing it. You have to let it
come, keep yourself flexible, eliminate tension. You have to know your
technique by heart, know the script, and not think about it any more.
What matters on a film set is the work of the crew. And then there’s
the magic. When the chemistry is there, the magic works. I’ve learned
that through experience. I probably have the instinct, and I’ve been
lucky! I’ve worked with people with whom the chemistry happened. Now I
know that I want to be more open to my senses. When the magic isn’t
working, I’m not happy. That doesn’t mean to say that the final product
won’t be good. It’s my job to see to it that it doesn’t show.”
To be top of the box
office popularity ratings also compels you to live on the fringe of
society. For Roy Dupuis, that means cutting himself off from people who
want to know all about him, speak to him, touch him, catch his eye, show
him with a smile all the admiration that they dedicate to him. It’s
cultivating the art of the fugue, like Bach, his favourite musician. <<impossible
to translate sensibly – in French, to ‘make a fugue’ is the same as ‘to
run away’ – viv>>
“In general I don’t run from crowds. I wasn’t like this before, but
people behaved differently towards me too! I get all sorts of looks but
I don’t take the time to read them all. And so it becomes difficult to
meet people. Besides, they already have fixed opinions about me. Some
of them are jealous. But I didn’t do it intentionally – I suppose I was
just there at the right time.”
Let’s now look on the bright side – fame could have its advantages!
Especially if you don’t have the temperament to be an accountant. But
what happens when you’re carrying on your shoulders the pressure exerted
on you by a director, a producer, or a mini-series on account of your
name.
“Yes, I feel it! But you can’t think about it. I have other things
to do – preparation, research, acting. Thinking about the pressure on
top of that is a waste of my time and energy. You have only one life to
live – you have to have fun! And when I have the time, I take my bike
and go off. I drive, I love to put in the miles. I like to climb in
the mountains, swim in a lake, go free-fall parachuting.”
And the danger?
I flirt with fear, not with danger. It’s a really safe activity.
And as soon as you lose your fear, you have a great time. Laughing
keeps me alive; someone who never laughs is suicidal. My relationship
with money? <laughs> I blow it. I love giving presents.
Extravagant? Oh yes, as much as possible! <laughs> Since I was small
I’ve had an eye for quality, the genuine article. And I love to take
people for big meals in restaurants, with good wines. That I learned
from theatre people – the love of eating, restaurants … And if you have
no money, you invite them home, that’s all. Basically it’s not a
question of money, but more of knowledge. The people I’ve known have
taught me that.”
At the age of 31,
does the person, whom every Quebec mother would like as a son-in-law and
who scarcely has time to draw breath between roles, harbour any concerns
regarding his future which apparently is getting more and more secure?
“We are all vulnerable to love, and love is everything. <laughs> And
also, there’s doubt. I will never stop having doubts about myself.
Every time I take on a big role like Yves (Being at Home with Claude) I
have doubts from the start. That’s it, the challenge. And fear helps.
But it can be a killer too. I love to live the moment to the full! My
dream is to make the most interesting films possible, here or abroad,
and to play the most fascinating characters. I want to be surprised
every time by what I read, by what happens to me.”
Defending his convictions, rarely making compromises, being fulfilled in
the immediacy of living is, in a way, Roy’s motto. A working hypothesis
– if Steven Spielberg offered you a script that you weren’t entirely
knocked out by, what would you do?
“I’d be very surprised if the project didn’t interest me if Spielberg
was making the film. Just meeting him would be exciting, as would
having the opportunity to work with him. But if I didn’t like the
character I wouldn’t do it!”
And acting with your favourite actress?
“I’ve already done it. But I’m not going to tell you who it is.
That’s my business.” <laughs>
So, the mini-series
Million Dollar Babies will be shown simultaneously on the
American network CBS and the Canadian CBC on 20th and 22nd
November, thus giving Roy Dupuis a golden ticket to conquer the American
public. ABC has already bet on his talent with the pilot of a police
series (Dark Eyes) where he will partner Kelly McGillis (Witness,Top
Gun). The filming of Scoop IV is already well underway, and
it’s with renewed pleasure that almost three million viewers will once
again encounter Michel Gagné, newly emerged from the icy depths of a
mine. If the behind-the-scenes rumours are to be believed, this season
looks like being the most moving of all. Émile Rousseau has not said
his final word and Stéphanie turns out to be an inflexible business
woman. As for Michel Gagné, whose love life is drifting away, he has
other fish to fry as various facts and his reporter’s instinct lead him
down dangerous tracks. Returning in 1995!
In the meantime, it’s the story of Oliva Dionne and his family (Million
Dollar Babies) that will inflame the whole of America. The three
sisters, Cécile, Annette and Yvonne, who celebrated their 60th
birthday last 28th May, were present at the filming of their
own drama which sadly made Canada infamous throughout the world.
“It was moving to see them there, knowing that they’d undergone this
terrible experience. They were very emotional too.”
And there are other dealings of which he will only mention the origin –
Europe.
“I’ll certainly take vacations, but I’ve never been able to say ‘no’
to a project that interests me.”
Roy Dupuis has built his empire of a pyramid which narrows at each level
to form a podium, open to the four continents, rocked by the breeze
where his name resounds louder and louder.
“It’s a big world, Mom. Don’t you see that we’re
being buried alive? You have to start living, Mum!”
So says Alex in Cap Tourmente.
“When I was little,” says Roy, “I never wanted to go to bed.
I was awake all the time!” |
