Some people call me Maurice: Roy Dupuis as Maurice
Richard in The Rocket. Courtesy Alliance Atlantis.
For Quebec hockey fans, only one thing could be more
exciting than the return of the NHL after a strike year: the premiere of the
Maurice “Rocket” Richard biopic The Rocket, which opened on 150
screens across Quebec on Nov. 25.
For Quebecers — in particular, francophone
Quebecers — Richard holds a singular place in social and political history.
He overcame physical difficulties (he broke an ankle early in his career)
and prejudicial attitudes (the National Hockey League was run by English
Canadians who had a clear disdain for predominantly working-class Québécois
players) to become a hockey phenomenon.
He helped make the
Montreal Canadiens virtually unbeatable in the 1950s.
Given Richard’s life story — a classic underdog
sports tale that intersects with politics — it’s surprising that it’s taken
this long for the narrative to wend its way into cinemas. Directed by
Charles Binamé (who helmed the massive Quebec hit Seraphin: Heart of
Stone) and written by Ken Scott (Seducing Doctor Lewis),
The Rocket, which grossed $600,000 in its opening weekend, is a hugely
entertaining and invigorating bit of filmmaking. Granted, much of its style
is predictable, particularly composer Michel Cusson’s musical score, which
swells during the multiple climaxes to let us know when to cue the goose
bumps. There are other disappointments — especially the largely
dimensionless role Julie Le Breton is handed as Richard’s long-suffering
wife.
But these are minor quibbles. For the most part,
The Rocket is great fun, a beautifully shot, carefully rendered
tale of a legendary sports figure. Quite surprisingly, its director
confesses he’s not a big fan of the game. “I don’t watch it religiously,”
Binamé confides. “I mean, I might watch the finals each year, if they happen
to be exciting, in the same way I might watch the Rose Bowl if it’s a good
match-up.”
What drew Binamé to a biopic about Richard was the
rich drama of his life. “The day after Seraphin opened, I was
sitting in [producer] Guy Gagnon’s office. Without even recovering his
breath from Seraphin, he asked me if I wanted to do a film based on
Richard’s life. I thought about it for a quarter of a second. I saw what it
could be. I could see the energy his story could take on in film form.”
Binamé’s central casting call couldn't have been
better. Roy Dupuis, iconic at the Quebec box office, delivers a commanding
performance, bringing emotion to the role without crossing over into pathos.
The fact that a household name like Dupuis plays Richard makes The
Rocket something of a double whammy for Quebec audiences.
The Rocket opens with Richard, played as a
young man by François Langlois Vallières, struggling to make ends meet with
a wretched factory job. We are shown how Richard saw his life as a Québécois
shaped by anglophone bosses; the owners of the factory are depicted as cold,
unfeeling union-busters. When Richard’s hockey career begins, there are
initial questions about his ability, with sports journalists casting doubt
on his ability to overcome a broken ankle.
Two minutes for looking so good: The real Richard,
circa 1954. CP Photo. |
They were wrong, as The Rocket makes
entirely clear. When Richard returned to the ice, his goal-scoring ability
turned him into one of the great legends of Canadian hockey. Along with the
success, however, came resentment, too often taking the form of prejudice.
On the ice, anglophone rivals called him “French pea soup,” a taunt that
infuriated the hockey star. The Rocket becomes a story not just of a sports
star, but of a working-class hero and champion of the oppressed.
That Richard came to symbolize something more than
just hockey excellence became clear in March 1955, when, after a bruising
fight (in which he was taunted and eventually decked a referee), he was
banned from playing for the Habs for the remainder of the regular season and
that year’s Stanley Cup playoffs. His tormenter, an English Canadian,
received no penalty whatsoever. The verdict was seen by the Québécois as a
slap in the face from English Canada and led to a night of rioting outside
the Montreal Forum. The moment is seen as a key turning point in Quebec’s
Quiet Revolution.
“I didn’t want to demonize the English,” Binamé
insists. “Rather, I wanted to show what we, the Québécois, have achieved
since this time — how far we’ve managed to come. The film was not about
being black and white. It’s about Maurice’s desire to express his own
courage and difference. Resistance, after all, is about the creation of a
hero.”
Binamé is quick to add that, while the film is
being released in the midst of more talk of sovereignty and fallout from the
Gomery sponsorship scandal, there was no way the people behind The
Rocket could have foreseen the current mood. “We really didn’t think
about today’s political situation when we were shooting the film,” he says.
Political issues and questions of national identity
aside, Binamé manages to capture a great deal of the blood-and-sweat details
of 1950s hockey — i.e. the pre-helmet era. “These guys were hurt all the
time, it was routine. And they were exhausted. We talked a lot about [Ridley
Scott’s] Gladiator. I really wanted to capture hockey the way
Scorsese had captured boxing with Raging Bull.”
The Rocket has received almost unanimously
glowing reviews from the Quebec press, as well as nods of approval from
Richard’s children and his former teammates. The film will open in the rest
of Canada in March, and Binamé is hopeful that, despite differences between
English and French, the common language of hockey will entice filmgoers in
other parts of the country to see The Rocket.
While Canada’s Governor General Michaëlle Jean has
urged Canadians to see past the Two Solitudes, Binamé believes a “fire wall”
still exists between French- and English-speaking Canada.
“I was invited to do a miniseries, H2O, in
Toronto a couple of years ago with Paul Gross. And you know, I didn’t know
who he was, I wasn’t familiar with his work. And he didn’t know who I was,
and didn’t know my work, either. The fact is that our two realities remain
very remote.”
The Rocket is now playing throughout Quebec.
Matthew Hays is a Montreal writer.
JAM interview
04-17-2006
|
Roy Dupuis to portray
'The Rocket' on the big screen
|
During his 22-year
career, Joseph-Henri Maurice Richard changed the face of hockey.
He was a major
influence on the game, not just in his home province of Quebec, but
in all of North America.
The Rocket, as he
became known, is an NHL icon and one of Quebec’s most beloved
heroes.
The task of playing
Richard in the bio-pic The Rocket, which opens Friday, fell on the
shoulders of Roy Dupuis, the actor best known in English Canada as
Michael Samuelle, the hero of TV’s La Femme Nikita, a role he played
for four seasons.
Dupuis, 42, has been
one of Quebec’s most famous actors since 1990, when the TV series
Emilie turned him into an overnight sensation.
“It happened for me
in one day. I had been acting professionally on stage, TV and films
since 1986 but no one really knew who I was.
“I could walk down
any street in Montreal without being recognized,” says Dupuis.
Then came Emilie,
which grabbed 4.6-millions from a province of six million people.
The next day, Dupuis couldn’t walk anywhere without heads turning,
fingers pointing or people asking for his autograph.
“It was scary. I was
then and still am a shy person. I didn’t want the responsibility
that came with that kind of exposure and that kind of acceptance,
but I had no choice.”
Dupuis’ own
experience with celebrity helped him understand what Richard went
through until his death in 2000.
The two icons met in
1999 when the actor first portrayed Richard for a TV series.
“It was a great
meeting that turned into a great but short friendship. There was an
immediate connection,” recalls Dupuis.
“He opened up to me
so completely. He said he agreed that I should be the person to
portray him, which is why I agreed to do this film version as well.”
Dupuis says Richard
was a simple man who had an intense battle going on inside him.
“Inwardly, he was a
proud man, but felt he could not be proud outwardly. He felt his
family and friends were not something to be proud of. That caused a
deep conflict in him.”
The actor says
Richard also “was a humble man to the very end. He always tried to
deny he was or even deserved to be a symbol of hockey in Canada.”
Dupuis fights the
same battle.
“You have to be so
careful what you do and what you say because eyes and ears are
always on you.”
“It is hardest for
people like Maurice and me because we are not extroverts. Some
people love the glare of celebrity. They thrive on it.
“Not us. That’s one
thing I tried to emphasize about Maurice in my performance.”
http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/2006/04/17/1537061.html
|
The Rocket a thrill of
a movie, with Roy Dupuis capturing hockey history
| |
| Pierre
Lebrun |
| Canadian Press |
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
 |
| Roy Dupuis is seen
in this scene of the film The Rocket. (CP PHOTO/ HO/ Alliance
Atlantis) |
|
(CP) - Roy Dupuis wept and he didn't know why.
Like many people on the night of March 11,
1996, the Canadian actor was moved by the ceremony commemorating the
last game at the Montreal Forum, and by the long and heartfelt ovation
reserved for Maurice (Rocket) Richard.
"I was at home watching that, it still moves
me," Dupuis, a lump in his throat, said in a recent interview.
"You're talking about a 16-minute ovation. On
TV. No one cut it. I had never seen that. I didn't know the guy yet,
didn't know the real story. I remember thinking after that ovation . . .
what just happened? Why am I crying?
"It's what we call in French l'inconscient
collectif (the collective unconscious). Three-quarters of the people
that were there never saw him play."
But they knew of the man, and why he meant so
much to Quebecers.
The Rocket, a film by director Charles Biname
and distributed by Alliance Atlantis, does a remarkable job of telling
that story. A hit in Quebec after being released last fall, the
English-language version of the movie hits theatres in the rest of the
country starting Friday.
"This movie is going out in 150 theatres across
Canada, that's never happened for a Canadian movie, never, it's like
Maurice has done it again," said Dupuis, who stars as the Rocket.
The fact the French-language version of the
film was warmly embraced in Quebec is no shock. After all, it's the
story of a blue-collar superstar hockey hero who helped carry an
oppressed French-Canadian society on his shoulders. Before the Quiet
Revolution, there was Rocket.
"This guy gave pride to his people," said
Dupuis, who first played the role of Richard for a Heritage Canada TV
vignette and a 1999 miniseries. "At the time we were second-class
citizens, that's what we were, that's the reality.
"And then this guy, at the right time,
happened. He became the greatest in something that was accessible to
everybody - hockey. And all those people who thought they were
second-class citizens thought: 'Geez, we can be somebody.' And that's
where it all started."
There are reminders throughout the film that
being French wasn't a cakewalk in those days, from the fence that
separated the poor French-Canadian fans from the elite (mostly English)
of Montreal at the Forum during games, to Richard's tormentors - first
the English factory boss, to Habs head coach Dick Irvin, and of course
league president Clarence Campbell.
And the feeling among the players that a
French-Canadian skater had to be three times better than his English
counterpart to make the Habs.
"One of the concerns that Ken Scott (the
script's author) and I had, was that we didn't want to demonize the
English," Biname said during a recent press stop in Toronto. "There were
a certain number of things that were irritating and frustrating, a
certain of number of events that happened, and we just put them
together.
"The interesting thing is that Dick Irvin,
who's supposed to be the real bad guy in the story, because he pushes
Maurice to the end, insults him, uses whatever at hand to make him go
crazy - he's the one who has the vision for the man. He's the one, you
realize through the film, who believes in him in spite of everything
else. So you have a great character opposing the hero which is actually
the one that makes him the hero."
Irvin is played brilliantly by Nova Scotia
actor Stephen McHattie (most recently in A History of Violence).
McHattie studied for the part by phoning up Irvin's son Dick Irvin Jr.,
a longtime Hockey Night In Canada broadcaster, and by reading books
Irvin had authored on his father.
"His son quotes him in a book saying the worst
part of the job was having to hurt the guys that he really loved,"
McHattie said in an interview. "He knew right away that the Rocket
played best when he was angry."
The Rocket's life was too eventful for two
hours so Biname had to choose where to start and end it. He starts with
a 17-year-old Richard, bent on making it big in hockey while also
supporting his family while working as a machinist.
Nowhere in the film do we see Henri Richard,
the Rocket's younger brother who goes on to win 11 Stanley Cups with the
Habs.
"Such a huge age difference," said Biname.
"Maurice had left the house and was almost finishing his career when
Henri came in.
"We had Henri in there for a while (in the
original script), we had a line in there for him, and then I thought:
'It's a plug, it's not right.' I don't like that. If it's not going to
serve the story, why do that."
The film builds up to the famous Richard riots
of 1955, when Campbell suspended the Rocket for the rest of the season -
including the playoffs - for assaulting a linesman during a brawl in an
incident that was sparked when Boston's Hal Laycoe two-handed Richard on
the head with a vicious high stick.
What helps sell the film is that Dupuis is no
slouch on skates. He played hockey growing up and plays his own scenes
in the movie. No stunt actors needed. And Dupuis doesn't look out of
place.
Another nice decision by Biname is letting the
characters speak in their native tongue, Rocket in French, Irvin in
English, and so on.
French subtitles in the Quebec release last
fall translated the English characters. Now English subtitles tell us
what Rocket is saying. It keeps the movie real, because that's exactly
how it was then. Dubbing the actors would have taken away from the
realism.
The real test for Dupuis was pulling off the
Rocket both on and off the ice, a task he took extremely seriously.
"I met Maurice many times when I did the TV
series at first. He became a friend, he opened up to me," Dupuis said of
the Rocket. "Because of the kind of man that he was, that meant he
agreed to the fact that I was playing him. What happens when you have
access to the person you're going to play, you become very intimate with
him, because you're trying to understand him and get inside of him. I
think we became very close. And then he died (in May 2000).
"So when they came up with the idea of doing a
movie about him, it's like they told me they wanted to do a story about
my best friend and they wanted me to play him. I said yes but I needed
to read the script first and agree, I needed to see in that script the
man I know. And that's pretty much what I saw."
© The Canadian Press 2006
|
NHLers have acting roles in The
Rocket
By PIERRE LEBRUN
|
 |
Los Angeles Kings' Sean Avery (left) hits Vancouver
Canucks' Alexandre Burrows during an NHL hockey game. In the
new film The Rocket, NHL bad boy Avery plays the role of Bob
Dill, a rugged player who lasted only two years in the NHL and
was called up to the New York Rangers - at least according to
the film - to rough up Richard. (CP PHOTO/AP/Branimir Kvartuc)
|
(CP) - The Rocket stands alone when it
comes to hockey movies.
The quality of the on-ice product resonates
throughout the two-hour film, a biopic about legendary Montreal
Canadiens star Maurice Richard.
And it stands to reason, given that
modern-day NHL players are in the film, whose English-language
release is set for Friday in theatres across the country.
Mike Ricci of the Phoenix Coyotes gets the
most screen time, cast as Elmer Lach who played on the famous Punch
Line with Richard and Toe Blake.
"I got a call out of the blue," said Ricci,
who has no previous acting experience, but whose battered nose made
him a good fit for Lach.
Ricci and 15 of his Coyotes teammates were
treated to a private screening while in Columbus, Ohio, last month.
"When you're doing it, you really don't
know how it's looking or what's going on," said Ricci. "When I saw
the movie, I was impressed. They did a great job. It looked great.
"My teammates enjoyed it, too, they had
fun," added Ricci.
Fittingly, NHL bad boy Sean Avery of the
Los Angeles Kings plays the role of Bob Dill, a rugged player who
lasted only two years in the NHL and was called up to the New York
Rangers - at least according to the film - to rough up Richard.
Even Avery laughs at the irony. In
pre-season, after the film was already done, Avery got into hot
water when he said a hit by then-Phoenix defenceman Denis Gauthier
on Kings centre Jeremy Roenick "was typical of most French guys in
our league with a visor on, running around and playing tough and not
back anything up."
"We filmed it in the summer so at that
point I didn't know that I was going to make comments that would
later throw Canada into an uproar," Avery said with a laugh. "I'm
sure the people at Alliance were probably excited about it, good PR
for them.
"And the fact I get beat up by a French guy
in the movie, that's funny too. I take the brunt of the fight, for
sure."
Now Avery has the acting bug.
"I think I would certainly like to do some
other things. I'm not going out and hitting casting calls by any
means. I think being in L.A., there's definitely more opportunities.
I really enjoyed it. I don't know how good I am, but the only way is
to keep trying and I'd like to do that down the road for sure."
Ricci doesn't share Avery's zest for future
roles.
"I don't know if I would ever pursue it,"
he said. "But if someone ever came up to me and asked me to do
something and they thought I could do it, I would consider it. But
I'm definitely not going to acting school anytime soon."
Vincent Lecavalier of the Tampa Bay
Lightning also appears in the film, playing the great Montreal star
Jean Beliveau - and he looks shockingly like him. Lecavalier, whose
dad was a huge Beliveau fan, wears the same No. 4 with Tampa.
Mathieu Dandenault of the Montreal
Canadiens, Ian Laperriere of the Colorado Avalanche and retired
NHLer Stephane Quintal also have roles in the film.
"Definitely that was important," said
Charles Biname, who directed The Rocket. "For me, even though it's
not really a movie on hockey, I wanted the hockey to be brilliant.
My standard was Raging Bull. If I could bring Raging Bull to the
ice, I would achieve something. Because you want to see the passion,
the craziness, the brutality, the violence, the hurt.
"So bringing NHL players in would guarantee
a level of playing."
Actor Roy Dupuis, who deftly portrays
Richard, is a solid hockey player in his own right. His skill on
skates helped sell the film.
"Yeah, he did everything, that's all him,"
said Ricci. "There was no double in there doing his skating. And
that's what made the movie I think. When you looked at Roy playing
the Rocket, he looked good, he looked like the Rocket. And in other
sports movies, you can tell it's somebody else skating or it looks
really phoney, but he made it look real because he did it himself."
Dupuis blushed when told the NHLers in the
movie were impressed by his skating.
"I'm a guy from Abitibi, I skated from the
age of three," he said. "But I kind of stopped when I went back to
the big city (Montreal). I let my hair grow and started to play
guitar. I still played midget AAA but guys wouldn't understand why
I'd miss a game to go see a Jethro Tull concert. So I was switching
worlds."
Dupuis said he was curious how he'd fit on
the ice with the NHL players.
"I remember the first time we rehearsed a
play with Dandenault and I deked him and went in on goal. He came to
me afterwards and said: 'Man, you can skate.' I said, 'Yeah?' and he
said 'Yeah, I have to skate full force just to catch you.' So I was
like 'Wow.' But those guys were playing on old blades, which I grew
up on. So it was probably an advantage for me."
All the hockey scenes were filmed in Quebec
City during a seven-day span last summer, where Le Colisee subbed in
as the old Montreal Forum.
"It was the first time I had ever done
anything like that," said Avery. "It was exciting, and a little bit
nerve-racking the first day. Because you're in a rink with a couple
of other thousand extras as well. The attitude I had is that I might
as well get it right as quickly as possible. The second day you get
into it more and feel more comfortable.
"It was fun, and I had never been to Quebec
City either, and that was cool. It's a beautiful city."
Keeping The Rocket's secrets
Apr. 21, 2006. 09:34 AM
MOVIE CRITIC
Quebec movie star Roy Dupuis does more
than just play Maurice "Rocket" Richard in The Rocket, a
biopic of the late, great Montreal Canadiens hockey ace that opens
today.
He also holds a secret for him.
Dupuis, now sporting a beard and a shock
of grey-flecked hair, has played the clean-shaven Richard three
times over the past decade: in a Heritage Minute spot; in a
TV mini-series; and now as star of Charles Binamé's The Rocket,
which was a hit last fall in Quebec under its original title
Maurice Richard.
The actor got to know the player well
before Richard's death in May 2000.
"We kind of became friends," said Dupuis,
43 years old today, in a Toronto interview last week.
"That's something that I owed to him, the
fact that he opened up to me. And I think he opened up to me
because he seemed to agree with me portraying him."
It must have helped that Dupuis is a
native Quebecer, a life-long Habs fan and an avid sportsman and
adventurer — he's currently building a ship for an
around-the-world cruise with his girlfriend.
One of the things Richard revealed to
Dupuis was how he felt on March 17, 1955, when Canadiens fans
rioted inside and outside the Montreal Forum to protest a
suspension handed to Richard by NHL president Clarence Campbell.
Found guilty of attacking a Boston Bruins
player (fans and The Rocket both insist he was provoked) Richard
was benched by Campbell for the rest of the season.
He was also ordered to stop writing a
newspaper column.
The "Richard Riot" raged for seven hours
and threatened to continue in subsequent days until Richard took
to the airwaves to appeal for public calm. The incident is so much
a part of the Rocket Richard story, symbolic to many Quebecers of
their quest for cultural identity in an Anglo-dominated nation, it
frames the opening and closing of The Rocket.
Dupuis wanted to know whether the
intensely private Richard was secretly proud about what happened,
despite his public utterances against the riot.
So he asked.
"But I won't tell you his answer," Dupuis
continued, dead serious.
"It was clear to me that his answer was
between me and him."
Dupuis was more forthcoming about Richard
and his own many-splendoured career:
QIn playing Richard three times, do you
think you got to know him better each time?
AI think I understood him almost the
first time I met him. It was pretty quick. I never wanted to do an
imitation of him, either.
I wanted to get the essence of this man,
the energy.
QIt was such a contained energy. Why was
Richard so quiet?
AHe was like that since he was young. I
think he was a man who had an inner battle.
He didn't like what he was seeing around
him concerning his people (Quebecers), the ones he belonged to. It
was also his temperament.
He was the kind of guy who didn't want to
talk for nothing because he was proud. He didn't want to say words
that didn't mean things.
QDid that battle torment him? Did he
struggle at being a Quebec icon?
ANo, it didn't eat him up because he had
the chance to express himself through hockey. That's what saved
him.
Otherwise, he would have become like all
those men who shut down and die, in a certain way.
QWhat do you think he'd make of hockey
today?
AOh, I know what he'd think of
hockey today! He was funny. He went to a hockey game with me once,
and he didn't like what he was seeing. He thought the guys didn't
skate enough, didn't have enough guts, and didn't want to win
enough.
QDid he make any request of you of how he
wanted to be portrayed?
ANot directly. If I would ask questions
or talk about a moment that happened to him, then he would
probably tell me what he felt about it, what he thought about it.
It was always made clear to me. But he never, by himself, said, `I
want you do this ...'
QHow did you feel about him, growing up
in Quebec?
AI never knew the whole story until I
started working on this. But I remember when they transferred the
old Forum to the new Bell Centre (in 1996). Jean Beliveau and Guy
Lafleur and others all came on the ice to pass the torch, and then
they finished with Maurice Richard. I was at home watching on TV,
and it was before they asked me to play him. And there was a
standing ovation for Maurice that lasted for 16 minutes. People
cried. He was crying.
When that was over, I said, `What the
f--k just happened?' Three-quarters of the people there had never
seen him play, because it was 35 or 40 years ago, and yet they
were crying about him. And when I started working with the
character, I understood where that emotion came from. I understood
that he lit a fire for a culture that had been treated like
second-class citizens — and most of them probably thought of
themselves as second-class citizens. And this guy (Richard) came
in, became one of the greatest at something, and just woke up that
pride. From there, I think, it started a movement.
QHow about your own career? You're a big
star in Quebec. You walk down the street and people recognize you,
but not here in Toronto. Why?
AI've done most of my work in French.
I've done maybe one English TV series, an American TV series shot
in Toronto, La Femme Nikita, which was more of a cult (the
series ran five seasons, from 1997-2001). And our movies don't
export well. English-Canadian movies don't come into Quebec very
easily and it's the same thing the other way around.
QNikita was a hit around the
world. Why haven't you moved to Hollywood yet?
AI didn't want to go and live in L.A. I
had offers, and they do some great stuff there, but I didn't want
to live there. I'm a northern guy. I like winter. I like autumn, I
like spring. But after Nikita was after Nikita. It
was five years for a TV series. I thought, let's go back home and
see what happens. I did some good stuff and had some good movies:
Mémoires affectives, Manners of Dying, Jack
Paradise ... some very good artsy stuff. It's going well.
Additional articles by Peter Howell
Rocket Launcher
Roy Dupuis on his astonishing turn as Maurice Richard
By
Matthew Hays
April 21, 2006
|
Roy Dupuis hits the ice as Maurice Richard in The Rocket. Courtesy Alliance Atlantis.
In Charles Binamé’s biopic
The Rocket – which opens this week across Canada after already proving a box-office success in its native Quebec – thespian heartthrob Roy Dupuis pulls off an astonishing performance as late hockey legend
Maurice Richard. The actor, who lost 20 pounds so that he could play Richard, had done his homework. He has played the hockey legend twice before, first for a TV series and then for a Canadian Heritage Minute. Dupuis actually met the man, and they became friends.
It’s difficult to convey just how significant this casting decision was for Quebec audiences. Richard resonates as a wildly popular athletic folk hero in la belle province. It was here that the Habs star player fought back against anti-French sentiment, proving his incredible prowess on the ice, demanding respect from the rest of the country. In 1955, when Richard was banned from playing by the hockey commissioner, a riot broke out in Montreal outside the Forum; this is still regarded by many as a turning point in Quebec society and the beginning of the Quiet Revolution. Dupuis has also become a symbol of Quebec pride, because of his immense
star power and exalted position in the province’s booming film business. He has appeared in everything from Being at Home with Claude to the Oscar-winning Barbarian Invasions.
CBC Arts Online sat down with Dupuis in Montreal to talk about playing a legend.
Q:
Did you play hockey as a child?
A:
Oh yeah. I’m from a region about 500 kilometres north of Montreal, and that was about all we had to do in the winter – and the summer, come to think of it. I was skating when I was three. I stopped playing hockey when I was about 15.
Q:
Was there a lot of preparation for this role, in terms of playing hockey?
A:
We watched a lot of the old games, watched footage and then tried to be as close to it as possible. We did that for about two weeks prior to shooting. It was historical footage, so we wanted to capture the choreography of the matches as closely as we could. Actually, we did it very well.
Q:
You knew Maurice Richard. What was the main thing that struck you about him, when you first met?
A:
It’s funny, there’s not much that struck me. He was a very simple guy. When we drove over there to meet him, the first time I ever played him in a TV series, the producer told me that Maurice didn’t talk a lot. But something clicked, and then we talked for two hours, non-stop. After that shoot we became friends. When you have to portray someone, and you have access to them, and this person opens up to you, there’s an intimacy that happens. It was a special bond between me and Maurice.
Q:
Did Maurice Richard ever give you any tips on how to play him?
A:
Never. The main thing for me was to figure out how to grasp the energy of this man. I never wanted to do an imitation of him. I thought that the best way to be true to someone is to start from inside. I grasped him pretty quickly. In some respects, he was a simple, straightforward guy. He reminded me a lot of my father, actually. My father played a lot of hockey, and he was poor. He had to stop playing hockey because his father wanted him to go play in the mines. There was something of Maurice that I understood because he was like my father.
Q:
How important do you think the political dimension to this story is?
A:
Very important. You can’t really tell the story of Maurice Richard without discussing what he meant to French Canadians, and what he became. It’s what makes this character worth being on the big screen for me. We make movies about athletes, but when you have a chance to make a film that has a social meaning, it brings a lot more depth to the story.
Q:
I’m intrigued to see how this film will play in English Canada. Language remains a divisive issue in Canada, but hockey is something that unifies us. Or it’s supposed to. How do you think The Rocket will play in Alberta or Southern Ontario?
A:
I don’t know. (Laughs) What we’ve heard is that the response has been terrific. The reason why they are doing such a huge release and put the push on distribution, is because they had test screenings throughout the rest of Canada and it scored incredibly well – as good or better than most Hollywood films. On average people were giving it a nine out of 10. So that’s why there’s such a push for the film now. So the reception has already been very good. What I think is interesting about this film is that because of the social and political end of it, it becomes a historical film. It’s as much an English-Canadian historical movie as it is a French-Canadian historical movie. It’s as much about your story as it is about mine. And that’s the way people are seeing it, at least that’s what people have told me. Some have said it’s the best Canadian movie they’ve ever seen.
Q:
What’s the most surprising reaction someone’s had to this movie?
A:
People say they don’t recognize me in the movie. They say they just see Maurice. And I’m talking about Quebecers, who know me pretty well. And his children said the same thing. They said to me that they saw their father. It was touching. I was close to this man, and when someone you know well dies, they become close to you in a certain way. They’re no longer there, they’re just inside of you. I wanted this movie to give him justice, to be true to him. That was very important.
Q:
Fame must be an odd thing to you, because in Quebec absolutely everyone knows who you are. But in English Canada and in the rest of North America, you’re known primarily for the TV series Nikita. Does the switch between the two ever feel odd?
A:
Yes, but I like it. I come from the woods – a very small community. What surprised me when I first arrived in Montreal was how anonymous you could be. It’s not like that in a small town. Everyone knows who you are and your business. You know everyone. You can’t just say or do what you want. In a big city you have a certain freedom. You can say what you want to the person next to you, and you may never see them again. I lost that freedom. That’s one thing I lost with the fame. It feels good when I travel and can go somewhere where I don’t feel like I’m being watched at all times. That tends to make me feel like I’m onstage at all times.
Q:
If people walk away with one thing after watching The Rocket, what would you want it to be?
A:
Pride. Pride and knowledge of where it is we came from.
The Rocket opens across Canada April 21.
Matthew Hays is a Montreal writer.
|
Copyright © 2005 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved
|
|
The
fiery temper that often inspired Richard to greatness caused him to spend
a fair bit of time in the penalty box. This trait also caused one of the
most notorious incidents in league history. On March 13, 1955, Richard was
given a match penalty for deliberately injuring Hal Laycoe and punching
linesman Cliff Thompson. A formal inquiry took place after which NHL
president Clarence Campbell suspended Richard for the remainder of the
season. This decision came when the Rocket was leading the NHL in scoring
and the Habs were battling for first place in the standings. Needless to
say, Montreal supporters were outraged. A memorable scene saw Campbell
being pelted with eggs when he tried to take his seat at the Forum for a
game against Detroit the following St. Patrick's Day. The crowd became so
unruly that the game was forfeited to the Red Wings and the building
evacuated. A riot ensued outside, causing $500,000 in damage and leaving
some deep wounds, particularly among the francophone community.
