Elle Québec February 1996

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=120 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <IMG SRC="4a16bb90.gif" border=0 width="107" height="185" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> Elle Québec February 1996 </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Elle Québec February 1996</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="250ce690.jpg" border=0 width="206" height="361" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">        <IMG SRC="49f65fe0.jpg" border=0 width="357" height="254" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>A Man of Dreams </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>**Note : The author has included a substantial amount of material from his previous excellent interview for Le Devoir in October 95** </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>He came out of the shower and was in a good mood. The croissants were on the table and the apartment smelled of coffee. Everything was going well but there was no question of forgetting to be on one’s guard: "He detests interviews. After ten minutes he can get up and walk out!" But I had heard that Roy Dupuis is generous with his time.   On condition that he’s not bored. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The interview lasted effectively more than two hours and Roy, this person who is said to be reticent and uncommunicative, was inexhaustible. He talked about Armand Gatti, the great poet and French dramatist who barely escaped death in the World War II,  after having been taken prisoner by the Nazis. Roy had met him</B></div> <div> <B>at the National Theatre School when he had given a lecture to the students. Gatti had talked of the war and his theatre, emphasising his words by waving a Magnum 45. He, better than anyone,  embodied the power of the word. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Roy talks of him with a gleam in his eye that reveals what burns inside him. For however much he discusses with enthusiasm Gatti’s plays about condemned men and prisoners, by all accounts, the fascination that this man holds for him arises primarily from his scope. "And his integrity". A quality which Dupuis appreciates </B></div> <div> <B>above all. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>After his brush with death Gatti succeeded in straightening himself out, even rising above the indescribable pain of his memories. And this Roy applauds, he who all his life has sought only one thing : to surpass himself. "Just to feel that I exist". </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>It has been said time and time again that Dupuis loves to dice with death, that he loves danger. "That’s not true," he says. "I don’t like to be afraid any more than anyone else. I motorcycle, parachute jump and mountaineer for pleasure alone, because I have fun doing these things. It’s true that I feel alive when there’s danger,  but that doesn’t inflame me." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Despite being one of the biggest stars in Quebec and passionately loving his work, Roy Dupuis believes more and more that life is passing him by. "One is always missing the boat; me, you, everyone.  It’s very difficult to explain because it’s still abstract in my head but it seems to me that there’s something very important to understand and to do here, but which completely escapes us. It’s a very strong feeling that I have, the impression that life is something else…" he explained recently in an interview with a Montreal daily. </B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B><< Le Devoir, Oct 95 >> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Normally discreet, Roy doesn’t regret having been quoted thus. "I tried to say that it’s essential for each of us to be aware that we are interdependent. I believe that each of our actions has repercussions on the other which in turn affects the mood and emotions of our neighbour. Like a game of dominoes. This prompts me to be more responsible towards people. To act with more integrity and gentleness too. If someone strikes your right cheek, offer him the other, said Christ; I’m beginning to be sympathetic to this type of message."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>This doesn’t prevent him playing a warrior in his latest film, Screamers, which opened in January and which tells the story of two groups at war over the control of mineral rights on a distant planet. He is said to have enjoyed the shooting, especially as he is interested in science-fiction "and its particular way of showing new contacts with the world." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>He is happy also with the result onscreen, in particular with having had the idea to put quotations from Shakespeare into the mouth of his character … just before he dies, his body severed by a discharge of laser beams. "I found a little poetry humanised him. The director Christian Duguay thought it was a good idea too. We did it together and it worked. I was quite proud of that." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The director of Screamers (a Canadian-American production) is not the only one to have seen in him something other than a ‘beautiful beast’ of the cinema. In the early years, the men and women in the business who envied him because his handsome face opened all the doors for him, had to have been right: his performances in Being at Home with Claude, the film by Jean Beaudin, and True West, by Sam Shepard, have come to confirm an obvious talent. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>He has felt the envy of his circle for a long time. But the subject bores him. He clearly prefers to talk about his godson "who is going through a bad time" and with whom he spends as much time as he can. Or mountaineering: he proposes to climb in a few months time Mount Coropuna in Peru, a peak 6600 m high, just 2000 less than Everest! Or to chat about the birds of the countryside, for whom he has built a water heater "to allow them to drink in the winter." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>He hasn’t got many friends, "four or five", goes out less often than before, and consumes all the philosophical dissertations that come into his hands. "The difficulty of being is our preferred topic of conversation," says Marie-Chantal Perron, a great pal who loves him like a brother. "As a matter of fact, he’s a very great expert in that subject," adds Jean Beaudin, who filmed Filles de Caleb with him. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>"You don’t gossip with Roy about last night’s baseball game," continues Pierre Houle, one of the directors of Scoop. To be close to him, you must interest him. Constantly. He’s not a superficial guy." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>It’s no doubt for this reason that the cynicism of society is seriously beginning to get on his nerves. "This tendency," says Roy, "to ridicule existence, to turn everything into a joke, annoys me deeply.  I have the feeling that people don’t take themselves seriously any more. In fact, one is so used to saying that it’s a failing that many have ended up believing they are worth nothing. I don’t agree: we are all important. Just because one has lost certain illusions one doesn’t have the right to wash one’s hands of everything that happens. No-one wants to take responsibility. Nothing is sacred any more. Everything is trite. It’s serious." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>He stopped drinking in January. "Completely. The excess and lack of moderation ended up making me miserable. I have also been in therapy for two years. It’s there that I make my most beautiful journeys and I find out at what point my brain has hidden away things." </B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#CC66FF" FACE="Arial" ><B><< Le Devoir says ‘forgotten’, this one says ‘hidden’ >> </B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Although he is ‘head-over-heels in love’, he takes the time to read all the scripts that pile up in his agent’s office, and he is preparing for a part in the next feature film by Marc-André Forcier, which deals with the world of cinema. "It’s a film of hope," explains Roy, "which features three generations of actors." He plays ‘Roy Tranquil, an actor’ (no kidding). </B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#CC66FF" FACE="Arial" ><B><< We presume this didn’t happen >> </B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>As for the rest, Roy waits. "My career brings me good moments,  but nothing yet with which I would be entirely satisfied. At 32, I would like to work with someone who dreams, and *who will help me to explore my own imagination. I need to smell other things, taste other things. I’ve had enough of realism." </B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#CC66FF" FACE="Arial" ><B><< *Slight adaptation of Le Devoir quote >> </B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>He has dreams. One especially. "I want to conceive, write, and direct my own film. And perform in it." He wants to carry through the project from A to Z, to feel what it’s like to dive into the void and risk one’s reputation. The project is already underway. Once a week Roy collaborates with a scriptwriter in writing an account inspired </B></div> <div> <B>by a news item, and whose theme will be forgiveness. "I am not going to say more, I already that I’m being stripped of something which is precious." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>He doesn’t dream of Hollywood., "a myth, this business." For him the key is to satisfy his passions, to displace the air, to be on the move.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>"’I have nothing to learn, I have things to do,’ that’s what I always say." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Even in professional things : "The important thing is that it gels." Particularly with directors. "If a project interests me, if it’s a challenge,and if there’s a chemistry between us, I get on board. It’s the only way I tackle the future and the work. As a matter of fact, it’s not work, it’s encounters." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>He loves his work passionately, confides Marie-Chantal, but if one day boredom sets in he will not hang on. "He will become a trucker,  or an underwater diving instructor, I don’t know. He wants to do so many things." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>No career plan then, but a goal, just one : "To enjoy my life."</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="49c3a1d0.jpg" border=0 width="314" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B><B><IMG SRC="49c3a1d0.jpg" border=0 width="314" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#9900FF" FACE="times" ><B>7 JOURS ROY'S NEW LIFE. DECEMBER 1996</B></FONT><B>                                </B><A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="7 JOURS ROYS NEW LIFE. DECEMBER 1996 "><U><B><IMG SRC="18f55350.jpg" border=0 width="85" height="53" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><B>     </B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>