Posted at 6:00 am
In order to prepare to embody on the big screen a man he initially knew nothing about, Éric Bruneau met people who had already met Donald Lavoie or who, thanks to their expertise, were able to analyze the personality of the latter he was sighting with him the existing archives and image documents. The physical resemblance between the actor and the one who now secretly lives under a different identity has rarely gone unnoticed.
“I was often told that there was something similar in the eyes,” says Eric Bruneau in an interview with La Presse. Even my girlfriend found a real resemblance. I had vaguely heard of the Dubois clan but never heard of Donald Lavoie. When I read the script – all of a sudden I found the story so incredible – I kept checking the internet to see if what was being said really happened! »
A moral dilemma
Directed by Raymond St-Jean (Louise Lecavalier: Sur son cheval de feu), who co-wrote the screenplay with Martin Girard (Saint-Narcisse), Crépuscule pour un tueur is the third Quebec feature film following Mafia Inc. (Daniel Grou – Podz ) and Confessions (Luc Picard), which revisit the history of local gangsterism in recent years. The release of this drama, filmed more than two years ago, has also been postponed to give some distance to that of Luc Picard, even if the two films are unrelated. .
In order to embody Donald Lavoie, however, Eric Bruneau had to face the same moral dilemma that Luc Picard faced in his interpretation of Gérald Gallant.
PHOTO MICHEL BOLDUC PROVIDED BY FILMOPTION INTERNATIONAL
Éric Bruneau is the headliner of Raymond St-Jean’s Crépuscule pour un tueur.
“I was totally intrigued at first by this guy’s story, the dramatic arc he walks, how he was able to bring down the Dubois clan, and how the protection program, which didn’t exist then, was invented for Witnesses him,” explains the actor. “The moral dilemma came later. As I started to do more research and saw the number of his victims – they say between 20 and 40, but it’s more than that – I hit a wall. »
How can you still get the viewer to follow the story of such a character without glorifying him?
Eric Bruneau
For Éric Bruneau, the only possible way out was to examine the need for validation of a man still in search of a father figure, abandoned by his family at a very young age. The filmmaker’s highly realistic approach in a film that depicts violence in a very dry manner and without any complacency was also an advantage.
PHOTO MICHEL BOLDUC PROVIDED BY FILMOPTION INTERNATIONAL
In Crépuscule pour un tueur by Raymond St-Jean, Benoît Gouin plays Claude Dubois, the underworld boss of southwest Montreal in the 1970s.
“Lavoie was a huge narcissist who thought he was the Prince of Saint-Henri,” adds the man who landed his first major film role in André Forcier’s The United States of Albert. He had found a father in Claude Dubois [Benoît Gouin]. Even when he knocked him out, he was still in awe at how brilliant and intelligent he thought he was. There is also investigator Roger Burns in the scenario [Sylvain Marcel incarne ce personnage au nom fictif], also a kind of father figure. For me, that’s the only angle I can approach the character from, the only path I can take to get there. »
PHOTO MICHEL BOLDUC PROVIDED BY FILMOPTION INTERNATIONAL
Sylvain Marcel plays Detective Sergeant Roger Burns in Crépuscule pour un tueur, a film directed by Raymond St-Jean.
The other’s gaze
Éric Bruneau, whose vocation as an actor has been on his mind since he was a child, has the wind in his sails at the moment, that’s undeniable. The series Before the Crash, which he also co-wrote with Kim Lévesque-Lizotte, received praise, as did Xavier Dolan’s The Night When Laurier Gaudreault Woke Up and Virage – Double Fault, the final episode of which aired last Tuesday became.
As he approaches his 40th birthday, how does he view this very bubbly period of his life?
PHOTO MICHEL BOLDUC PROVIDED BY FILMOPTION INTERNATIONAL
Éric Bruneau and Rose-Marie Perreault in Twilight for a Killer, directed by Raymond St-Jean
” 40 years ? I like that. That’s good. I’m getting to the age now when you have experience and energy and when life has invaded you enough to know how to tell the important from the unimportant. I have more maturity, more business. An actor wants to be told all the time that he’s good, but it seems like writing has allowed me to calm myself about it. To be an actor is to exist in the desire of the other, his Being subjected to gaze. All the time. That attitude is still special and I don’t want people to always decide for me whether I can work or not.”
Still, I love getting roles, especially like Twilight for a killer. I like going into different universes. But I feel like at 40, it’s like something more has emerged.
Eric Bruneau
Everyone can obviously see that Eric Bruneau is a very handsome man. He is constantly reminded, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much. The gaze of the other person is also very present on this aspect of his person.
“At one point I was joking,” says the man who will soon be shooting the film Ababouiné for the third time, directed by André Forcier. I was tired because I had the impression that in everyone’s eyes I was just that. I ended up arguing with myself that I felt good enough at something to think people wouldn’t remember it. But what is certain is that double standards are used here. We don’t talk about actress beauty in the same way. But hey, if the world thinks I’m beautiful, that’s fine, but I had to make peace with that by getting roles where I could change my appearance. It freed me from something like writing for that matter. My task is to disappear behind a character. In life there is already enough light on me. »
Twilight For A Killer hits theaters on March 10th.