“Scully is certainly the most amoral character I’ve played.  He’s able to kill a human being as easily as if it were on a hunt.  It’s nice to do because it’s an extreme character.  He has no boundaries and he can go to extremes in everything,” recalls Roy Dupuis, two years after portraying the character which makes such an impression in The Timekeeper, released yesterday.

 “He’s a survivor, a guy with no awareness of others, ready for anything in order to survive.  Ready to change sides at any moment to form an alliance with whomever will be more useful in saving his skin, for his survival,” says the actor on the telephone.  “I could have gone with a more mysterious side to his character, but I preferred to pry into his internal logic.
Scully is pretty basic, almost primitive.  He has an animalistic side which allows total freedom of movement, and it was great to do just for that.  He has a very stubborn, spontaneous nature,” adds Dupuis, specifying that the shoot was quite special, because it really was a boys’ film.

 “It’s not often that the cast of a film consists only of men. Unlike most films, even an hour into it, it’s still just men.  Not a single woman appears on screen. On the set, it was funny and after several weeks let’s say that the atmosphere was quite relaxed (lax?).  There really was a male energy.  It was a different way of life.”

That said, Roy Dupuis says he appreciated the working style of director Louis Bélanger, with whom he was filming for the first time.
“He works in a sensitive, caring manner.  It was a good encounter,” he maintains, specifying that he particularly appreciated shooting in the open air, on the North Coast.
“It’s one of my favourite places in Quebec.  I love nature, and although it wasn’t the first time I’ve filmed out of town, it’s certainly the most I’ve been out in the open.”

 “The countryside is beautiful!  Maybe it’s because I come from Abitibi and learned to appreciate nature when I was young that I don’t feel at all out of my element.  It’s always nice to be really in the wild and not in a wooded suburb, especially for a film like The Timekeeper.

As a matter of interest he recounts that the contrast was all the more marked for going directly from the North Coast to the Instinct de Mort set in Paris.  Oddly, the film starring Vincent Cassel as Jacques Mesrine, one of the most wanted men in the ‘70s, has still not been released in Quebec, while it has been a great success in France and New York.

Asked about the most important role he’s had so far, Dupuis answers immediately : General Dallaire, whom he portrayed in Shake Hands with the Devil.
“I really had the feeling I was continuing the General’s mission and doing all that I could to teach people about our errors, to avoid them being repeated.  The last meeting I had with him lasted six hours, and when I left I felt I was on a mission.
Moreover, discovering the reality of Africa only increased my commitment to the environment and for trying to improve the human condition.  It allowed me to widen my point of view regarding our own reality, especially regarding those (western companies) that continually exploit the riches of Africa.  When you see people dying of hunger you become aware that it’s happening in real life, and not just in a novel.”