The man steals the limelight like an actor.  This description is obvious when you meet Roy Dupuis.  There’s nothing shallow about this man, still labelled as a sex-symbol despite the white locks that pepper his lion’s mane.  He doesn’t try to be interesting – he is.  If the 45 year-old actor appears experienced and polished, the man himself radiates as he articulates his analysis of society which is nurtured by the opinions of contemporary thinkers.  L’Itinéraire interviewed Roy Dupuis on the occasion of the release of Truffe, Kim Nguyen’s latest fantastical film, in which he plays a workman from Hochelaga-Maisonneuve who struggles to make a living from a black truffle deposit.

Comfortably settled in a canary yellow armchair, cigarette in one hand, espresso in the other, Roy Dupuis seems visibly at ease in the room that his friend and agent has put at our disposal.  He speaks fluently and unrestrainedly, contrary to the rumour that he is obstinately taciturn with journalists.  Sincere of expression and blinking rarely, the 45 year-old actor first plunges into what attracted him in the screenplay of Truffe: “I liked the social comment.  The fact that it caricatures the multinationals that control mankind, enslaving them to make them like robots.”

Kim Nguyen’s latest film is meant to be an allegory about capitalism and over-consumption, a topic that sets Roy Dupuis talking. “We don’t educate people; we mould them into good little soldiers in the service of business.  In the capitalist system, man is regarded only as a worker and a consumer,” says the actor, elaborating on Truffe’s message.  On the same tack, the actor also regrets that the language of our society is based on the dichotomy between winning and losing.

An avid reader of thinkers Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky and Ricardo Petrella to name but a few, the actor has developed an acute awareness of the society he lives in.  “We’re literally controlled, subjugated by the prevailing wisdom that the other guy is a threat, which is why we’re more or less obliged to crush him if we don’t want to starve to death.”  Drawing on his cigarette which immediately encircles him in a ball of smoke, Roy Dupuis doesn’t mince his words when asserting a more down-to-earth analysis.  “We don’t have social projects any more; the sole objective of our leaders is to increase the GDP.  The people’s well-being no longer counts and our leaders are no longer leaders, but employees in the pay of big corporations.  They don’t work for us, but for the people with power.”

Both co-founder and co-president of the Rivers Foundation which promotes the alliance of people and organisations dedicated to the protection of Quebec’s rivers, Roy Dupuis thinks that rallying the general public is necessary for the protection of one of our greatest communal treasures.  It was members of the public, worried about the fate of rivers, who rang warning bells and convinced Roy to commit himself to the Rivers Foundation.

“I’m not just the spokesman,” he says.  “Behind me is a multitude of dedicated people – scientists, specialists who convince me to take action publicly.  I’m not the sort of person to automatically endorse a protest, because you need to challenge it.  I always need to be convinced.

The actor is proud to be part of an organisation that provides a way to tackle the great powers who are too often thirsty for profit.  However, he notices a resistance in the media when his speechmaking affects interest groups.  The injunction to “look good and keep quiet” is not his style at all. 

“The more you upset people the less of a voice you have in the media.  Sometimes information is manipulated in this way.  I’ve given interviews where important parts of my speech have been cut in the editing.”

In an open letter to the newspaper Le Devoir in April 2006, the actor declared that he had been made the object of malicious attacks by editorial writers, particularly those of La Presse and Le Quotidien, for questioning the exploitation of the Rupert River by Hydro-Quebec.

“When you oppose a project, you’re not necessarily against everything.  You’re getting involved in an undertaking that belongs to the people.  The private sector never exists for the good of the people,” he says, having just played a worker who stands up to exploitation by a multi-national in Truffe.   According to him, you have to beware of those who advocate privatisation of the health system or our shared resources.  When the Quebec government announced last May the purchase of 2,000 megawatts of wind energy from private companies, the actor wasted no time in showing his disagreement.  “The wind must belong to all the people of Quebec.  Private companies can build the wind generators, but the raw material must belong to us.”  Make no mistake: there’s a place for private enterprise, but wind energy and its profits must remain public.

Even though Roy Dupuis regrets that the mass media often manipulates the population, the actor is convinced that the great changes in society happen through information.  “In parallel with the information from the main media, the internet permits access to other sources of information and allows the creation of networks of solidarity that can’t be controlled.”  Far from denying the growth of the ideological right wing, he is convinced that the groundswell of mobilisation against globalisation will change the course of society in the future.  “They (the advocates of neoliberalism) have already lost, because an informed people can rebel.”

Who would have believed that Roy Dupuis is a man of few words?