ELLE QUEBEC MAR. 1992









                     ELLE QUEBEC MARCH 1992



Like Ovila he dreams of building a castle for his lady; like Michel, the journalist in Scoop, he knows how to make headlines. And as you might expect, he goes right to the edge of himself in Being at Home with Claude, the film which will no doubt make Roy a prince.

"Roy Dupuis has a pretty face, a lot of luck, a bit of talent and he drinks all night." Roy Dupuis sums up his own myth before scuttling it. He arrives exactly on time for our meeting, quietly orders a Perrier and talks passionately about his work. He appears as sober as he is disciplined, not so much lucky as gifted, and sports proudly on his face - for pretty it is - a three-day beard.

Since he has been called reserved, unsociable and uncommunicative, it’s surprising to see him smiling, affable and outgoing. And albeit wearing a leather jacket and the inevitable jeans, he politely complies with the ritual of the interview.

ROY: "It’s true that in the past I’ve thrown out journalists and anyone who’s come to have a go at me, several in fact. But it’s enough just to be well known, for your parties to turn into orgies and your celebrations into riots."

Since success has disciplined him, many things have changed. Between his performance as a journalist in Scoop and the interrogation that he was subjected to in Being at Home with Claude, Roy Dupuis is beginning to become accustomed to questions - those that he asks and those he responds to. "What is disturbing in an interview is that you never know to whom you are talking : 50,000 people, that’s no-one and everyone at the same time." But as he has "no time to have a private life" Roy Dupuis doesn’t have a lot to hide.

ROY: "Since I became well known I feel I have more difficulty understanding and talking about simple things." It’s all the more unfortunate as there are those who prefer this straightforward man, direct and less inclined to introspection. "I am always carried away by a spontaneous desire to experience things and to meet people. The theatre or the cinema is a good way of going back to fundamentals, like in a relationship. You are obliged to open up, to simplify things. Unfortunately, I feel I am experiencing the simple things less and less …"

Since leaving his native Abitibi, things haven’t stopped getting complicated for the 29 year old actor. In five years he has graduated from the National Theatre School ("whose existence I didn’t know of before I studied there") to the unexpectedly enormous success of Filles de Caleb. Now at last the boy who "always wanted to excel at hockey, swimming and acting" is afraid of having scored so many goals that he has distanced himself from the only one that has ever counted.

ROY: "A star must face up to a pressure the likes of which an actor is not prepared for, which no-one can share. You can easily lose sight of your emotions and feel isolated."

At the height of the success of Filles de Caleb, it became "dangerous" for Roy to go to buy his bread in the morning.

ROY: "Girls asked me to autograph their breasts in the street, guys stopped their cars to speak to me in the middle of the traffic!"

While others would have taken advantage of a sabbatical year, Roy Dupuis moved up a gear: in less than a year he has filmed back to back a French-Québécois production (Les Veufs <>), a television series (Scoop) and the most awaited Québécois film of the year, Being at Home with Claude.

In this adaptation of the play by René-Daniel Dubois, Roy Dupuis plays the role of Yves, a prostitute who kills, in a moment of passion, the only man that he has ever truly loved. "It’s the most difficult role of my career. Ovila and Yves are like night and day." To accentuate even more the difference between the two characters Roy went as far as losing twelve kilos, "a device to draw me closer to the ‘east end of town’ of these guys. This allowed me to bring the character into the body, not to play the ‘faggot’, but the sincerity of a man. Certainly losing the weight feminised me a little, especially in contrast with the police inspector played by Jacques Godin …"

In accepting to join Jean Beaudin, director of Filles de Caleb, on a such a controversial project, Roy Dupuis knew that he was risking a lot. It was exactly that risk that excited him, even though he knew that the experience wasn’t going to be a pleasure trip.

ROY: "I had never seen the play, I didn’t know how taxing it would be to speak the lines on the set. But I think that making the film was like performing the play all day long."

Roy Dupuis occasionally has the notion that his vision of the play was not that of the author.

ROY: "For me, Being at Home with Claude is a story of love, the city, of death. It talks of homosexuality, obviously, but I don’t know to what extent Dubois knew what he wanted to say when he wrote the play …. It seems to me that he described homosexuality as a form of death. And in some way I believe that it is. From the moment that you no longer have children you reject life and eternity. Perhaps I’m saying this because that’s all I would wish to see in the film, but it really leaves me with a feeling of death in that society."

Roy Dupuis kept company with this crowd during a long month of preparation.

ROY: "I walked in Parc Lafontaine, on Mount Royal, and in the gay Village. I hung out in the bars, the parks and the streets, I got the feeling of encountering Yves in many forms: from the smiling young lads who dance for the gentlemen in ties to the sombre fellow who looks at you from the far end of the bar." From these nocturnal excursions, Roy gained the "regard of these people and their deep friendship".

"I discovered they were very respectful, that they liked me and what I did. Certainly I don't have the same rapport with them as I do with girls or straight guys, but I felt good in their company, I felt sheltered. When they like someone they are very protective, very warm. The sex is there, of course, but it’s up to you to see if you are interested " Did he concede that one might be able to be? "There were moments when I thought yes. I don’t want to go into my personal life and to tell you what happened, but I sometimes felt that the character influenced my acts, my desires, my inclinations." Overhead an angel of indeterminate sex passes.

"It’s a world not so far removed from this. What that society is looking for, everyone is looking for: a little love. I had no desire and no sexual relations during the filming, just an immense need for tenderness." Did he fear he would be carried away by the character? "That would not be a fear but a pleasure. Fear is when the character drops you."

There are nevertheless many that have carried him during these five short years. From the eternal lover in Romeo and Juliet to the murderer in Un oiseau vivant dans la gueule (by Jeanne-Mance Delisle) Roy Dupuis likes everything that these characters have allowed him to experience. Yet he treasures a special memory of Jay, the young rebel that he personifies in the play Le Chien by Jean-Marc Dalpé.

ROY: "Jay resembled me as if he were my brother: in his way of defying prohibitions, of doing what he wants, where and when he takes a fancy. That was me, at that time. But now that I have finished I would sooner observe and revitalise myself. You must live well in order to be able to play well and I want to try to make up a little lost time this year."

At the dawn of his thirtieth year, the rebel has found a cause : his own. While waiting to act perhaps some day with his idols, Brando and Pacino, or for the cameras of Jarmusch, Lynch, Parker or Coppola, he eats the real life which one day will nourish his cinema. He hopes to recapture his life at the wheel of the sports car he has bought himself, with which he often takes to the road for several days at a stretch.

ROY; "I love to plough through the country roads, discovering an inn or a restaurant, visiting churches and castles when I go to France. My dream would be to build a castle in the country…"

The ex-stalwart of the bars and notorious playboy now dreams of playing lord of the castle in the tranquillity of an ancestral home? "It’s amazing, but I’m considering it very seriously. When I find the place to build my castle, I will do it with my own hands, even if it takes me forty years. I will have beautiful stones, splendid wood, and good friends. Only things that are solid and proof against time."

On that, the man gets up to rejoin his legend and puts away under his seducer’s smile the dreams of a child. Convinced that one day the grownup Roy will be the little prince of a forest estate and that he will bury himself far from the noise and rumours of the city….








ECHO VEDETTES APRIL 1992