Q: Your character Michael is a professional killer with a heart. It’s remarkable the way he faces his work without fear, even fixing his own bullet wounds. You play him like an extraordinary man who is made of steel. Do you see him like that?
Part III - On playing Michael
Q: Your character Michael is a professional killer with a heart. It’s
remarkable the way he faces his work without fear, even fixing his own bullet
wounds. You play him like an extraordinary man who is made of steel. Do you see
him like that?
Roy Dupuis (RD): Well I see
Michael as a kind of ghost compared to normal human beings. He has to be able to
kill anyone if it is demanded. He’s been doing that for a long time. I guess
he doesn’t care anymore about the things normal humans do. So, I feel I’m a
little like a ghost.
Q: Ghost as in shadow of a person?
RD: Yeah. He has no emotion. He doesn’t really care for anything.
Q: Yet he seems to have a connection with Nikita.
RD: Because she’s probably the only pure thing around him.
Q: Does Michael have any history? Is he single? Ever Married?
RD: He was married once.
Q: Did he kill his wife?
RD: She was an operative. There is an episode where she was on a mission he was
supervising. There was trouble, and she didn’t come out of there. Since that
day he’s been a bit colder.
Q: So he shut down?
RD: He really learned quickly. But we found out in that episode that she wasn’t
killed. She was just a prisoner for two years and was tortured. Nikita finds her
and Michael tries to get her out of there, but she’s not herself anymore. All
she wants is vengeance, to get even
with the guy who tortured her. She traps him
somewhere and dies with him without my character being able to do anything about
it. So yes, he was married once.
Q: Where does he hail from?
RD: I don’t really know. I think he comes from a rich family. Probably too
rich, and he didn’t see his parents much. And he probably did some very bad
things too. I like to think I have made up my own story, but I don’t want to
reveal it, because I like mysteries.
Q: Women love bad boys and your
character is...
RD: A GOOD bad boy.
Q: How close are you to Michael? Are you at all like him?
RD: I think I’m pretty far from Michael and the coldness of his character. But
I am playing him with my own sensibility. I play with him and with the
understanding that I have of his character and instinct, because there is a lot
of instinct in that character. Single
Living - Sept./Oct., 1997
"I wanted him to
have a romantic look because I think of Michael as a modern knight," says
Roy Dupuis.
So what does Dupuis think is behind the appeal of Nikita's
criminals-turned-assassins premise? "I think it's the intensity of the
situation. The characters are always close to death," says Dupuis. But
judging from the show's dozen or so websites, the hot-and-cold relationship
between Michael and Nikita also keeps people coming back for more. Dupuis
agrees. "I would say the most asked question is, 'Does Michael really care
for Nikita'?" he says. "I don't know if I can or should say. Michael's
gestures are clues to his feelings for her, but in the show, at any time, we
could be asked to 'cancel' the people we work with. It's a rough and cold
existence." Time Out New
York - Mar 26-Apr 2, 1998
(When asked about his accent) For a movie, I could get rid of my French accent because you have limited text to say. But it is a thing I like to
keep for Michael. Certain French musicality.
Q: How has Michael changed the most since Nikita has entered his life?
Dupuis: I can't really know, because when we first see Michael, he is already with Nikita. But I think Walter says it once in an episode
that Michael used to be dead and now he is a bit more alive. There is something
different in him. I think Nikita is the reason for Michael to still be alive and to hold on to life. At least one of the major reasons.
Q: Roy, what is the most challenging aspect of portraying Michael Samuelle?
Dupuis: The control. And all the background of Michael and all his inner life.
To portray a character who has killed so
many people and sometimes without
knowing why he is doing it. And losing so many people who were so close to him
and keeping it all together with a bladelike control to protect himself and the
reality he is in.
Q: How much input do you have in
Michael's character development?
Dupuis: Not much. It is mostly in the details. Of course we have very busy
schedules and we can't be implicated in the writing process. We get the
scripts about one to two weeks before we shoot it, while we are shooting another
script. When I first read it I give them certain ideas, and usually they are
welcomed. We have learned to work together very well.
Q: I've seen both La Femme movie incarnations. Do you at all compare yourself to
your counterparts in those films?
Dupuis: No, because in the series, we extrapolate. The reality of the characters
are not the same. In the movie, they are just mentors and teachers. They don't
go on missions and kill people themselves and have to control the killers they
are with. So I guess the answer is no. TVGen chat transcript
- Jan 3, 1999 source: http://lfnhideaway.tripod.com/chattranscripts.htm
“I differ from Michael and
his coldness a lot. Yet I do bring myself and my sensitiveness to my role," he says.
Katso
- March 13 - 21, 1999
“If I compare Michael to the rest of the mortals, I see him as a kind of ghost. He has no feelings, he really
doesn't care about anything or anyone. He's a tormented man. I'm far away from his coldness. But I portray him with
my sensibility,” Tele
Indiscreta - March 6 - 12, 1999
Q - And how did you initially view
the Michael character? And how has that changed over the last three years of the
series?
RD: Well, you see, we only had the pilot to work with; and the pilot was very
close to the movie. So in the movie Michael is Bob, or Michael in this pilot, is
a trainer, is a mentor. And you see him controlling his people, but you don't
imagine him going out on missions and 
killing people himself. So actually he's a
little bit like what Madeline is today. That's a little bit like I viewed him at
first. But for the series, we kind of added to the character that he was also an
operative; that he also goes into missions, and that he's probably one of the
best, or the best operative the Section has. At first, since he hadn't
killed all those people, himself, I guess he was a little bit more natural...
... I would say. But starting from the second episode, when I read the second
episode, I saw him more as a mixture of Jean Reno, you know, the cleaner in The
Professional.... and the trainer. So I pushed in that direction...
... I wanted to propose a character that was minimalist, total control. Because
I thought that's the best way to serve the Section. I wanted to build a
character -- because in the Section you have two choices; you die or you live.
That's the choice you have. You decide to do it; they want you to do it or you
die. And I think Michael finds it too easy just to die. He's a perfectionist. So
he decides to live. And since he decides to live, all he's got left is his job.
So he decides to do it as best he can. Not out of pride; just because that's all
he's got left.
... And just -- that's it. So for
me to do the best job in the Section is to be completely emotionless; not
showing anybody who you really are. So that they don't see
any weaknesses in you. And it's also a way of being honest in front of everybody
...... in the sense that when you look at Michael, you know that you're nothing
to him. And that's
what you are in the Section. And that's how he controls his people too.
Q: But there is a slight touch of ambivalence, don't you think, as well?
RD: When in front of Nikita, yeah. That's the only thing...The only person he
cares about.
Q: But there also seems to be some sort of feeling, not necessarily positive
towards Madeline and Operations -- you know, the higher authority.
RD: Well, that he can show to Nikita sometimes, yeah. I think the only time he
said something about them was this year...If his wife died, he would kill them.
Yes, of course, I don't think Michael -- I don't think anybody would like to do
the job they ask them to do.
Roy Dupuis: The Actor's
Method - Fashion Finds - July, 1999
http://www.fashionfinds.com/july/pages/roy-dupuis-5.htm