Actor Roy Dupuis. (Steve Carty/CBC)
Since he was launched into stardom in 1989 with the popular Quebec TV series Les Filles de Caleb, Roy Dupuis seemed destined for Hollywood. With his matinee idol looks and unaccented English, he’s been called the Canadian Brad Pitt. Instead, the limelight-shy Dupuis has stayed close to home, settling with his longtime girlfriend in a 1840 farmhouse just outside of Montreal, and carving out a career that includes art house features (Being at Home with Claude, The Barbarian Invasions), acclaimed biopics (Million Dollar Babies, The Rocket) and cult TV series (Nikita). At this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Dupuis is featured in two high-profile films: closing night feature Emotional Arithmetic, in which he plays the son of a Holocaust survivor, and Shake Hands with the Devil, in which he stars as Canadian hero Gen. Romeo Dallaire. Sneaking a cigarette outside of his hotel in Toronto during the festival, Dupuis spoke to CBCNews.ca about “the most intense role of my life.”
Q: Shake Hands with the Devil is set during the genocide in Rwanda, Emotional Arithmetic deals with the aftermath of the Holocaust. Were there any resonances for you between these two films?
A: Well, yes, there were some similar themes — this was my genocide year as an actor — but they were two very different characters, with different relationships to the tragedy and different implications. I did Emotional Arithmetic right after Shake Hands with the Devil and I was happy to not be playing the lead role. I needed several months after Shake Hands with the Devil to come down from it.
Q: When you play a real person, like Gen. Dallaire, or Maurice Richard in The Rocket — men who are well-known and revered — do you prepare for it differently than when you play a purely fictional character?
A: Like I did for Maurice, I never try to imitate them. I try to know them and feel them. I had access to the general, which was amazing. With the general, you see him the way he wants you to see him. He controls his image. But he really opened up to me and showed me a side that not a lot of people see unless you’re really close to him. He did that because it’s a very important project for him. He doesn’t want this story to die. This man has gone through something that is almost unimaginable. Before I left for Rwanda and saw it for myself, all my information came directly from him.
A: It didn’t take long before I felt that I was on a mission, the mission the general gave me. The responsibility wasn’t just to deliver a portrayal of him, but to tell this story. To make the film important enough and good enough so that it’s seen and his mission is accomplished. So, yes, there was a weight, but that was part of playing the character. He felt the weight when he was over there. So the weight I felt was fuel for my work. I could use it to understand what he felt.
A: I think he’s happy with what I did, with the respect I had for the story. He said that when he watched it, sometimes he wouldn’t see me, he would see himself.
A: Absolutely. I’m more aware and more emotionally linked not just to Rwanda, but Africa. I listen to the news differently now, with more awareness and understanding. And that’s a good thing, when you can do projects that teach you a little more about the world and have it change you like that.
Rachel Giese writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.
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