Part II - On the farmhouse

"The city Roy has given way to Roy of the countryside. There, in his delightful newly purchased stone farmhouse dating back to 1840, situated an hour from Montreal, he is building a nest with the woman in his life .. in preparation for a stream of kids to come along? "The house is there, the woman is there, and the inclination is there. We're thinking about it. Especially as my friends are beginning to have children. When the time is right .. perhaps!" 

"I feel that the house will become my hobby. I have a carpenter here and I'm learning .. I intend to find out about plumbing and electrics. It's important to do something tangible, like painting or sanding - and to see the results right away. I want to have fun with my house."

"It's a great way to wind down. Working on a piece of furniture, walking on your land is really extraordinary. It's giving me indescribable feelings at the moment, and I think it's going to become even more fun."

Roy Dupuis has made two feature films this summer (J'en Suis and Hemoglobin) and is getting ready to leave Montreal to play a new character in an American series based on the film Nikita by Luc Besson. "But I'm going to come back to my land every weekend, that's for sure," he promises.  7 Jours  Dec. 7, 1996

"La Femme Nikita’s Roy Dupuis: The Cure for the Common Man" Single Living - Sept/Oct 1997

SL: I hear you love working on your 1840 farmhouse in Montreal

RD: Yeah, this is new for me, all new. I’ve been looking for this house for 6 years. It’s the land, too, as much as the house. I think it’s the best move I’ve done in my whole life-buying myself a part of the planet. It brings you down to the real things. It took me a while to figure out what that feeling was, but when you walk on your land, it’s like you have a little planet of your own, and it leads you into deciding how you want your planet to be. And of course I enjoy the stars and the wind and temperatures and everything.

SL: Is your home your hideaway?

RD: Being an actor, I found that I needed something concrete to manipulate and fashion at my own will and see the results right away. The house is like that for me. For the painter it would be..

SL: ...the canvas?

RD: Yeah, that’s it. I’m working on textures and colors. I also have this project of a very modern intelligent glass house that I want to build just beside the old house. When I say modern I mean ecologically and technologically, something that heats itself and everything.

SL: That’s interesting, a glass house. Does that mean part of you is willing to have people see inside you that intensely.

RD: No... I want to be able to look outside. That’s why I stay in the country. I don’t see anybody from my land.

SL: You want to view the world but from your own domain?

RD: Well, I guess I want people to look at me too. But I am very known in my country, Quebec, so it is hard for me to do what I like, just walk outside and stuff like that. I’m kind of a shy person. It made me more shy to be so observed.

SL: You seem like a very intense and aware person. When you’re on your planet, in your house, what do you think about.

RD: It depends. The city life stops for me when I am there. There are-- how do I say that?-- 3 ways of timing life. There’s a fast lane, medium lane, and a slow lane. At my place I’m more in the middle and slow ones. I like to look at stars, and I like to read about philosophers, and then I think about the house. I’ve been there only for a year, so I’ve taken a year to just think about it before doing anything. The date when I will start working on it is pretty close, so that is mainly what I think about right now. The materials I want to use and the colors. Then there is my girlfriend, I give her all the time I can because I’m not there that often these days. And my friends who sometimes visit.

SL: What’s your biggest challenge at home on the range?

RD: I’m digging a lake this summer. I have a 2 acre swamp, and I’ll be digging that up.

From Feb 11 1998 Real Hollywood Live online chat

Q - "Roy, is there any one great dream or goal you have that you haven't yet fulfilled?"

RD - "Yes. Well, there is since I bought this farmhouse, which is an 1840 house in the country on 50 acres of land. I have this uncle who's been working on a house like this for 40 years now. And, I've worked with him through time and this place has become almost like a masterpiece. It's HIM. He's worked on every bit and piece of it. All the land ... he chose the trees. It's an incredible place. "I want to do this with MY place. I want this place to be ME. When I leave, I want my children to take advantage of it and live in it and to continue this to make this piece of land like a dream. Yeah, that's what I want."

"I had been looking for a house like this for six years. It has the power to bring me back to reality, makes me feel that I have a piece of the planet just for me. And there I love to enjoy the stars, wind, weather and all those things. I'm a bit weird on that, like Michael," he adds, and does not stop thinking all the rebuilding needed to be done on his farmhouse to convert it to an ecological house with the latest techniques: "I think about this house as an artist would do. I think about the materials to be used, the colors I want ..." Tele Indiscreta March 6-12, 1999

"3 years ago, I bought an old farm house built in 1840, with a big land. It's my dream house - it took me 6 years to find it. Now that I've found it, I want to spend time there, and do renovations. First year, I renovated the kitchen. Last spring, I built an oak porch. I have so many long term projects - I planted trees - I want to see them grow
up before I die ! My house is my passion ! Having this house allows me to look at nature, trees, and people, in a different light. I want to raise a family. I want to see my kids grow in that environment. I want that land to be my legacy to my kids - a place for them to go back to after I die. A place for them to build their own future." 7 Jours  March 20th 1999

"I bought a land and a house, and I realized I need all that. It took 6 years for me to find that special place. Now I have it, it's one of my great passions, it's an inspiration. I do renovations, I take good care of it. I can see myself with kids, I want kids - that's part of the reason I bought the house - I want it to be a family house. It gives me 'roots', and
something clicked in my head when I realized that house was 'my place'. That land is my planet, I decide what I do with it. It gives me responsibilities, another way to look at trees, nature, and people. I want this house to belong to my kids after I die - so they can remember where I came from, where they came from. I want to give them the same feeling of 'belonging' that I feel right now." Echo Vedettes March 20, 1999

"I've got work on the house to finish in July. Our home - it's my planet, my land. The house and the grounds anchor me. From the moment I owned a piece of land I felt a little bit more responsible. Responsible for the planet at large. I often do a tour of the estate. So often in fact that I practically know every tree, even the ones that are badly damaged by the ice."  Échos-Vedettes June 25, 1999

“It’s an 1840 farmhouse. I've taken off most of the gyproc that was in the kitchen, and found it was plaster before. So I found the original recipe and redid the plaster inside. “

"I built a porch in the front garden, and I integrated a round patio. It's all cedar and turnposts and balconies, and a copper roof. I'm really pretty proud of it. It's the first thing I've really built."

“This house took me six years to find. This house is also ... a dream. I want it to stay in the family; if I have children ... so they know where they come from and they have the land, a contact to the earth. I find it very important. …….Now, I want to redo my bathroom, so I'm going through every bath I can find. I like those old ceramic ones. I've got a spa, a hot tub, out in the middle of a hayfield. We go in there, and then dive in the snow.” -National Post April 8, 2000

"I used to spend most part of my time building tree houses. Now I recently bought an old nineteenth century house in Quebec and all my spare time I spend rebuilding it. I searched for a house like this for six years. I'm not leaving this place. It is really a passion. It gives you a different look at the world if you live in the middle of nature". Veronica  April, 2000

"It's still in good condition except that the previous occupants had fitted it out in aluminium. I've removed it all and replaced the wood. It's not a renovation, rather a restoration." Echos Vedettes June 23, 2001

"All the time I was shooting Nikita, I did the exterior of the house and now I've moved inside. I now have time to look at myself, inside myself, as I am inside the house. I had a lot of cleanup. I had to go through all the piles of stuff, all the things I've left behind or not completed - people or things I've let go. Now I'm cleaning up." Nuvo Magazine Oct, 2001