Roy Dupuis is in a good mood. He stomps into his agent's Plateau Mont-Royal apartment-turned-office in the rugged brown boots that seem never to leave his feet, no matter what the weather. His agent's rather stern assistant has been ordering everyone to take off their boots, but apparently that rule doesn't apply to the guy who is arguably Quebec's most famous actor.

Dupuis plunks himself down on a sofa; a little grin on his face. His upbeat humour is a good thing, given that interviewing the star is never the easiest of tasks. Dupuis - who will be back on the big screen Friday starring in the much-anticipated Séraphin, Un Homme et Son Péché - is one intense guy. He doesn't do small talk and his answers can be artistic and enigmatic, with gusts up to downright baffling.

He once refused to answer a query about Peta Wilson, his hot co-star on the stylish action TV series Nikita, and, when pressed, wouldn't even offer an explanation as to why he didn't want to talk about the Australian beauty.

But during an hour-long discussion one afternoon last week, Dupuis was only too happy to talk about Nikita, Séraphin, all the Hollywood offers he fields, and how he feels about the fact that, largely thanks to the cult success of Nikita, he has devoted fans (most of them female) all around the globe.

Since the Toronto-shot Nikita wrapped its five-year run last year, Dupuis has been working closer to home, first with the Radio-Canada/CBC biker miniseries The Last Chapter and now Séraphin. But he doesn't rule out the possibility of signing on for another international English-language series. It all depends on the project.

"If David Lynch does another one, maybe I'll do another series," Dupuis said, with a laugh.

He receives loads of Hollywood scripts and says he reads almost all of them.

"I've been reading some interesting stuff and some crap," Dupuis said. "But sometimes even a bad series can give you some good ideas."

For the moment though, he'd like to spend some time chez lui. When he took the part as mysterious covert agent Michael in Nikita, Dupuis was already a top vedette here in Quebec thanks to the phenomenally popular TV series Les Filles de Caleb, Blanche and Scoop. Then during the Nikita years, he almost completely disappeared from the francophone Quebec film and TV scene. In fact, his starring role in Séraphin is his first major Québécois film role in five years.

He says he enjoyed doing Nikita but was less enthused about spending five days a week in Toronto. He had just bought a 1840s farmhouse in the countryside outside of Montreal and was frustrated he wasn't able to spend more time there.

"I was coming back every weekend and, after five years of traveling, I wanted to settle down," Dupuis said. "It was hardest on my personal life."

So Dupuis is pleased to be finding work closer to home, but he insists he isn't following any particularly well-thought-out career plan. The fluently-bilingual Abitibi-born Dupuis, who spent part of his childhood in Kapuskasing, Ont., says he never chooses projects based on language or location.

"I don't like to set any rules for myself," Dupuis said.

"If I have one French script and one English one, I pick the one I prefer."

He has, however, done more high-profile English-language projects than many of his francophone Québécois colleagues, including the hit CBS miniseries Million Dollar Babies and the film Screamers.

He also starred as biker-gang boss Ross Desbiens in both The Last Chapter and its follow-up miniseries, The Last Chapter II - The War Continues, both of which were shot simultaneously in English and French. (The Last Chapter II airs in French on Radio-Canada in January and in English on CBC in March.)

Initially, Dupuis was reluctant to accept the role as Alexis in Séraphin, Un Homme et Son Péché because he felt the story had already been told so many times here. Based on the 1933 novel by Claude-Henri Grignon, the classic 19th-century drama about a twisted miser in Sainte-Adèle was made into two movies in 1949 and 1950, a radio series and then a long-running Radio-Canada TV series, Les Belles Histoires des Pays-d'en-haut.

"I hesitated because there's been so many things already made about Séraphin," Dupuis said.

"But when I read the script (by director Charles Binamé and Pierre Billon), I realized I didn't really know the story. I found it was a lot more intense than I remembered. This is a tale about the sickness of power and how that kind of reckless power can destroy all that is beautiful in the world."

In Séraphin, the young Donalda, played by Karine Vanasse, falls madly in love with the dashing rebel Alexis (Dupuis), but their romance is ripped apart when Donalda's father (Rémy Girard) strong-arms her into marrying the power-hungry Séraphin Poudrier (Pierre Lebeau).

The film has echoes of the period drama Les Filles de Caleb, one of the most successful series in the history of Quebec television and the show that made Dupuis a household name in la belle province. Les Filles de Caleb's debut season on Radio-Canada back in 1989 pulled-in an astonishing average audience of more than 4 million viewers and, quite literally overnight, turned Dupuis into one of the most famous personalities in French Canada. So if Séraphin is the mega-hit distributor Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm hopes it will be, then it'll be nothing new for Dupuis.

"That's been part of my life since Les Filles de Caleb," Dupuis said. "It has its good side and its bad side. If there are people who know my work around the world, at least that means things made here get to be seen elsewhere.

"But I always ask myself, 'What have I done that's so important?' I didn't invent anything. I didn't change humanity. I'm just the vehicle for an author's words. It makes me want to do things that I think are more important, like making documentaries or starring in auteur films."

Dupuis is currently researching a documentary that he'd like to direct and is considering several proposals to act in Québécois art-house films, but he said he can't divulge the details of any of these projects right now.

Séraphin, Un Homme et Son Péché opens in Montreal Friday. 

  © Copyright  2002 Montreal Gazette  Article originally online at: http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/story.asp?id={F3DA76F4-6A0F-4DEF-85AE-6EEEDDFC6E80}