I recently had the chance to speak with actor Roy Dupuis who plays the Prime Minister of Canada, Maxime Laplace, in Rumours. I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere in Cannes back in May. Read our full discussion below.
You have worked with [co-writer/co-director] Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson previously on The Forbidden Room. How was the experience of collaborating on a more accessible and linear narrative in Rumours compared to your previous collaboration together on a more experimental film?
Roy Dupuis: For me, it was two completely different processes. On The Forbidden Room, they gave me probably the three best days of shooting in my life. We were shooting this in a small studio in Montreal where the mountains and the set were done out of papier-mâché. I was walking on the spot as the trees moved around me. It made me feel like I was five years old and doing sketches in my basement. It was just pure magic. And it was only for three days. We were shooting one movie per day. The concept was totally different from Rumours, which is more accessible. It’s a movie with a beginning, middle, and end. But, it is still a unique piece of work. It’s funny and scary. It’s got this soap opera feel. The set was completely different and more of what I was used to. But it was a little bit bigger and there were a lot of people on that set. The team in Budapest was really great. The mood was completely different. We shot Rumours in 23 days with 20 days of night shooting. Even Charles Dance hasn’t done that in his amazing career.
It is crazy having to go through this night schedule, and I’m sure it is jarring for a lot of people.
Dupuis: It also created this bubble because, since it’s night time, it feels like we’re doing something in secret. There was that feeling of a family that grew between us with Cate [Blanchett] being the mother since her character was the hosting country, Charles would be the grandfather, and I felt like the teenager.
Did you find in reading both scripts as well that Rumours was a lot easier to follow?
Dupuis: Yeah, of course. I don’t even remember reading the script for The Forbidden Room. This one I remember well because after reading the script, I called Guy [Maddin] and told him I was not going to do the movie. Not because I didn’t like it, I loved the story. I had been doing this TV show for more than three years that revolved around domestic violence, and I was drained from playing emotional characters. The character was very emotional for me. It felt like an overdose of emotional scenes for my character. After I hung up with Guy, the character and story of Rumours haunted me for the next four days. It was becoming more and more present, so I called him back to say I could still do it if it’s not too late. I’m glad I did.
You have played numerous public figures in the past, including Maurice Richard. While not portraying a specific Prime Minister, you tackle this role that makes you a representative of Canada alongside some of your colleagues who are doing the same for their respective countries. Was there any pressure to tackle a role that’s one of the biggest symbols of Canada?
Dupuis: Not really, not for me. I didn’t see it as having to represent Canada. I was playing the Prime Minister for maybe the first 5-10 minutes of the movie. After that, it just becomes a human being dealing with his emotions and trying to survive. That’s pretty much what I understood from the movie. They are leaders, but they are humans. It’s a movie for me that talks a lot about politics, but what speaks to me the most is about humankind right now in an era where humans can become useless because of AI. The world is changing very quickly right now and nobody really knows what the future is going to look like. You can’t tell any young person what they should study today because you don’t know if the job is going to be there when they come out. That was the avenue that spoke the most to me in this movie.
How was the process of bouncing these emotions as well as dark humor amongst your co-stars? Did it give the actors room to do some improv in the movie?
Dupuis: The cast was really well done. Everybody was really well cast. Every actor was there for the right reason. Everyone was working for the story. They all appreciated, respected, and liked the story we were telling. It was a well-written script. It was like a theater show. You don’t move a word or play with those words like we do for other kinds of projects. The words are the right words. It carries you so you don’t need to force it out. The writing carries you to what you have to do. There is always a little bit of improv everywhere, but for this movie it was mostly in the body language and the action as opposed to the dialogue.
Do you have any future projects that you would be comfortable sharing?
Dupuis: I finished a movie this past winter in Northern Winnipeg, which is funny because Guy is from Winnipeg, and we have Stefan [Ciupek], the same cinematographer as Rumours. It’s a western, but instead of being on horses, it’s on ski-dos. It could be interesting. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but this will come out a bit later.
Special thanks to Roy Dupuis and the Rumours team for the opportunity to discuss the film. Rumours releases in theatres October 18th.
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