René Simard believes he received “a gift in a career” for his first theater experience when he landed a role in the Quebec adaptation of the famous comedy The stupid dinner.
“It’s sweet, especially, to end up with this gang,” says the jack-of-all-trades, who is just beginning his second summer as the character Juste Leblanc.
“[Le metteur en scène] André Robitalle had already offered me a first piece, but I felt less comfortable and had declined the offer. I told myself that he would never call me again. No, and all the better because it’s really something I wanted to experience.
Although René Simard is in his sixties, he continues to build strings into his bow.
“It’s a whole school,” he said, praising the “rigor” of his teammates Normand D’Amour, Laurent Paquin, Pascale Montreuil, Gabrielle Fontaine and Bernard Fortin.
“You’re nasty…”
Even if we know the lines by heart, it’s almost impossible not to laugh when we see Le diner de cons. Imagine what it must be like to keep your seriousness for a newcomer to the board like René Simard.
Apparently it’s not always humanly possible to suppress a giggle.
“It happens to me that I quit because of this fanatic. You’re really petty,” says René Simard, gently pointing the finger at Laurent Paquin, who also took part in the interview with Le Journal.
In his role as con artist François Pignon, the comedian has an ideal playground to test the limits of his peers, and he doesn’t hesitate.
“Eventually my character pulls a gag and thinks it’s funny. He laughs. The others not at all. So I explain my gag to them because I think they didn’t get it and I laugh. From one night to the next I don’t laugh the same way anymore. So it sometimes happened that I saw René all red and tried not to laugh.
- The stupid dinner will be presented in the Salle Albert-Rousseau until July 23. All details about it sallealbertrousseau.com.