Please write: dan@dancooper.tv
Return to Page One
Register her!

Roy Dupuis: Well there’s something I did. Well, that’s another whole long story ...

FF: That’s a long story ...

Roy Dupuis: It’s from an author named Armand Gatti, who was Italian in origin, but chose to write in French.

Armand Gatti

FF: The name’s familiar.

Roy Dupuis: And I think that’s because of the Second World War.

FF: Uh huh.

Roy Dupuis: He was part of La Résistance.

FF: Right. Right.

Roy Dupuis: He came to France while the Italians were on the other side I guess.

FF: Yes.

Roy Dupuis: And this guy wrote a play. This guy’s a giant. He wrote a play that took him like seven years to write.

FF: Wow

Roy Dupuis: The play lasts five hours. The first part of the play is a play, and the second part is an opera.

FF: Really.

And what is the title of it?

Roy Dupuis: Opera Avec Titre Long, which means opera with a long title. And the long title is actually all the names of people who were German, and not the high society in Germany ...

FF: Yes ...

Roy Dupuis: ... who were participating in La Résistance, that were taken into a prison and that were killed there. And it’s their story that he unburied.

FF: Very interesting. So that was quite a production then.

Roy Dupuis: Yeah it was. It was pretty amazing.

FF: I bet.

Roy Dupuis: And it’s the kind of man he is. He chose The National Theatre School to show this play for the first time.

FF: Oh that’s really amazing.

Roy Dupuis: Like nowhere almost.

FF: Wow

Roy Dupuis: We had a another man who wrote a play once -- he stayed two months with people on death row...

FF: Uh huh.

Roy Dupuis: ... and asked them if they wanted to do anything, a movie or anything, and they decided to do kind of a play. And they wrote their own monologues.

FF: How interesting.

Roy Dupuis: But yeah. I could talk to you about this man for a couple of hours.

FF: Very interesting. And so because it was part opera, part play, did you also sing your role?

Roy Dupuis: Yeah, I was part of it, yeah.

FF: And so after the four years at the school, then you decided now you’re a full-fledged actor and you’re going to set off on your career. What were some of the early decisions that you made for yourself?

Roy Dupuis: I didn’t make a lot of decisions. Like I told you, I never really chose to be an actor.

FF: Yes.

Roy Dupuis: It was just there. I started working as soon as I got out in Harold and Maude, in a play. And then some Sam Shepard. Actually, I did two of his plays, professionally.

FF: Which two did you do?

Roy Dupuis: I did Fool for Love and the last one was True West.

FF: Oh -- oh great, terrific.

Roy Dupuis: Yeah, it was fun.

FF: So you did mostly theater in the beginning.

Roy Dupuis: Yes.

FF: And when did you make the move over to television?

Roy Dupuis: That’s another long story. Well, not that long. Actually, when I was in National Theatre School, we were working with this Belgian director who knew another French director in town to present something he had done. And then the Belgian director invited the French director to see what he was doing with us at the National Theatre School. And then he saw -- I remember shaking his hand. He was there for fifteen minutes of rehearsal.

So a year-and-a-half later, I got this phone call at home, and it’s him. And he says, I’m calling from Paris, and I would like to offer you a role in a play that Jean Genet wrote ...

FF: Oh wow ...

Roy Dupuis: ... just before he died ten years ago. And so I said, yeah, why not. So I started kind of meeting with him. And actually we did the reading in New York. One year after the death of Jean Genet at The Alliance Francaise.

FF: Oh sure.

Roy Dupuis: Yeah, that’s where I did it.

FF: Oh neat.

Roy Dupuis: He was preparing us to go to Paris to do this play, and I was about to go over there, and he came down with my contract, and he started reading the contract. And he said, no, I don’t like this contract. I’ll bring it back. I’ll bring it back to Paris and send you another copy. There’s some stuff in it that we want to change, because he thought it wasn’t okay for me.

Anyway, he went back to France, and meanwhile another director was doing some auditions for a big series that was going to shoot in Quebec, and he absolutely wanted to see me. And I said, "Okay, I’ll go, but I’m going to Paris ..."

FF: Right ...

Roy Dupuis: "... in a month."

FF: What was the name of the series?

Roy Dupuis: Les Filles de Caleb.

FF: Oh yes, I read about that.

Roy Dupuis: In English it was translated as Emily.

FF: Uh huh.

Roy Dupuis: And so I did the audition, and the director started to say that I was right for one of the characters, and that I should do it. And then I finally did decide to do it.

FF: Uh huh. How did you make that decision?

Roy Dupuis: Oh, it took me a month. I had friends, and asked, "What should I do?" And I finally said, "Okay, let’s go with it."

FF: It’s a hard choice.

Roy Dupuis: Yeah it was.

FF: And that was quite a success for you, Emily.

Roy Dupuis: Well, imagine there would be a series in the States; since Quebec is kind of like an entire country, because we’re the only one to speak the language in North America. So it’s like if it were a series in the States, you would have eighty five percent of the population of the States watching it.

Just in one day I was living in downtown Montreal, and the night after the show aired, I went out of my house and it was like wow ...

FF: That was it for your privacy, right?

Roy Dupuis: Oh yeah, that was it. That was it.

Next, Roy recalls his audition, and the beginning of La Femme Nikita.