La Presse
Saturday 8th January, 1994
"It was 1986 and I was working on Le Chien, a play by the young author Jean-Marc Dalpé, in the rehearsal hall of the Theatre of New Ontario in Sudbury. Suddenly I stopped on seeing a stranger entering the room. ‘That’s him, that guy is Jay, my lead character‘. I didn’t know if he was an actor, and it didn’t matter, I knew that it was him." ‘He’ was Roy Dupuis, and the woman who discovered him was Brigitte Haentjens who has since become artistic director of the New Theatre Company.
She wears a leather jacket and is still trying to understand the violence of mankind, he drives motorbikes and free-falls from 12000 feet by choice, and with particular enthusiasm. They were fated to develop a mutual understanding and to enjoy a long period of collaboration. When she asked him to play the dubious character of Lee, a bum, a thief in True West by Sam Shepard which opens on the 20th January in the Denise-Pelletier Hall, he didn’t hesitate for long. It was "yes"! after several years’ absence from the theatre acquiring considerable celebrity through cinema and television.
In the meantime he had, however, declined an offer from another theatrical company to play the part created by his idol Marlon Brando in A Streetcar named Desire. But he could not refuse Brigitte, who gave him his break in Le Chien, where he gave a spirited, angry performance playing a young man skinned alive in Northern Ontario. Brigitte convinced the TNO, and staged the play which was a great success as far as Europe.
Roy then followed up with several theatrical productions, Les Muses Orphelines, Roméo et Juliette and Un Oiseau vivant dans la Gueule which Brigitte Haentjens once again produced.
And then the doors opened very wide for Roy Dupuis, but they opened all at the same time. He was asked to play an interesting role in Haute Surveillance by Genet on stage in Paris. It was an eight month contract. On the other hand he was offered the part of Ovila in the prestigious television series Les Filles de Caleb in Montreal. We know what he chose, but he deliberated a long time before donning Ovila’s cap, and it was Brigitte he asked for advice.
"Bah! He didn’t listen to me. I told him to go to Paris." Roy has never regretted his choice, and he still considers it the most beautiful role he has played onscreen. But was it really the best choice? Has he not missed a unique chance to have a career overseas? "I have never thought of a career. In fact, I have never had the time to think about it. I prefer the ‘here and now’."
Roy Dupuis is comfortably installed in Brigitte Haentjen’s office at the NTC, his large boots on Madam Director’s desk. It’s the lack affectation, the simple speech, the direct answers and something in the eyes, in the intonation of the voice, which convey sincerity. The line between the actor and the man is thin; a few words, some gestures, a little technique, but all the rest is the same breath, the same passion, the same contention between violence and fragility or anxiety.
Roy Dupuis is an engaging man who gave me a three hour interview without being asked. He is one of those rare actors who avoids speaking to the media; when he does he manages to say a lot without actually giving anything away, so as not to harm his career or his personal life.
He has the kind of fiercely independent way of living his life and expressing his opinions which remind one of the giants of the cinema, which he could one day be, on the international scene. But between now and then he has rediscovered the joy of the theatre.
"I missed it! I was getting tired of work on the set when we got together to discuss the play. What I missed was the broader range of this kind of acting, and then the quality of the scripts for stage productions is always far superior." I know that I have been cosseted in cinema and TV, but in the theatre there’s danger in doing dialogue. Also you have to work all the time at analysing and questioning yourself about the part. In the cinema you are more alone, and often it’s over with very quickly. Brigitte interrupts, "Yes, but you have had beautiful parts in film and television; Ovila in Les Filles de Caleb, the young prostitute in Being at Home with Claude, then Cap Tourmente …."
Roy agrees but "It’s tiring acting all the time. There comes a time when you feel old. I can understand a man like Jean-Paul Belmondo making easy films at the end of his career. Here, you have to make a lot of films to pays for the holidays. You know, as long as I am still not internationally famous I don’t have the choice to do what I really want to do. Offers from abroad are my way out. That will allow me to broaden my scope. Because here you have to do so much, and there’s a limit to what one actor can do. "
There’s a lot of talk about international careers. It’s something of a dream for everyone in this business even if they don’t readily admit it. In the case of Roy Dupuis it’s a little different, because in his case it’s more than probable. It’s just a question of time
"I have asked myself if I’m taken on because, with my name on the credits, it’s easier to get funding, or if it’s because I’m a good actor. I have had offers from abroad and I fluctuate between Europe and the United States. Unless you are a huge star in the United States it’s not easy, and I ask myself if I really want to play this American game. Anyway, wherever we are we just live on a little ball - it’s only the planet, and you can be distant from where you are without being somewhere else."
At this precise stage in the interview our conversation took a new direction. I realised unexpectedly that we had been on the wrong path. It wasn’t really the job, the ambitions, the fame and the overseas career which preoccupied Roy Dupuis, but something deeper, more fundamental in his life. "I really want to spend some time travelling. For the moment I find escape in my love affairs, in the women through whom I've rediscovered myself, and who have loved me. For a year now I have been aware of things which didn’t interest me before. I don’t know if it’s just my age - I’m 30.
"I’m more disciplined. I don’t go out any more, I no longer go to bars because they’re no fun any more, and in my position I can’t allow myself to. But there is still the motor cycle and the free-fall parachuting. The feeling ten minutes before jumping is inexplicable. It’s like being in the theatre. But it’s a double edged sensation because when you return to earth it’s tough. When you get back home still with all the adrenaline of the extreme excitement, you are never so alone in your apartment. You have to learn to live with that, to accept ephemeral things. In love desire doesn’t last and that’s why you have to have children around you to carry on. To accept that there is less passion …. To be honest, I’m in a phase where I don’t know what I want. I need to have intense experiences, always extremes, but I also need to have discipline.
"I ask myself many questions over and over. You know, it’s difficult to believe in your own creativity when you’re an actor. These are not my words, my ideas, my emotions that I play. What is left of me when it’s finished? I am not a pizza, I am only a slice of pizza. I would like to do something creative with my hands. I would like to sculpt or to build a house. I would adore that! Directing interests me, particularly in the cinema, or perhaps the stage.
At last he’s not serious any more. And the future? "I believe that it will be necessary to be satisfied with very little, to be content with an orange juice." He departs on that thought of orange juice. And I don’t know why but during the interview I often thought of Brando.