“The best way not to become my boyfriend, Patrick Huard warns, is to start a sentence with ‘Young People Today…’.” Conversation with a humorist you won’t hear say… that we can’t say anything anymore.
Posted at 6:00 am
Patrick Huard knows all about the tightrope walk that is a bye bye and the risks of falls that come with it. Back in 2003, he played Pierre Karl Péladeau in Séraphin Poudrier in This is not a Bye bye, a sketch that earned its author Louis Morissette a spot on the press tycoon’s blacklist.
Nervous as he approaches his first year in review participation as a member of his official cast? A little bit, but only in that “no one wants to give a bad bye,” he said in a lengthy interview with La Presse.
In the past few months, however, Patrick Huard has not noticed at all that the organizers of the traditional meeting on December 31st drove with one foot on the brake. His code of conduct regarding his imitations? “If I’m not in a hurry to show the person I’m playing a sketch, I don’t do it,” confides the actor, specifying, of course, that this rule excludes our leaders, who “often deserve it”.
We can be wrong, we’re not infallible, but people want us to take risks. If we are too comfortable we will be told, if we go too far we will be told. It’s like in Formula 1: the driver should drive as close as possible to the wall. Even sometimes, the world doesn’t hate a little crash.
Patrick Huard
He therefore refuses to join the discourse of those who claim that the room for maneuver of this type of program and comedian is generally restricted. “If you go on social media you will think that the entire population thinks this or that is not being said, but on the street it is not happening, he observes. Freedom of expression for comedians hasn’t changed; There’s just people who have raised their hand to argue that there’s a way to say the things that hurt them, and that’s okay. »
A sensitivity that doesn’t mean he believes certain issues should be sidestepped. “If you don’t talk about someone or a group with humor, you shun them, you think they’re too fragile. If you have affection for the person you’re making fun of, I think it can all pass. »
LOL and young people
Patrick Huard is piloting LOL on Prime Video starting January 6th, a Japanese format available in a dozen markets and based on a concept as simple as it is jubilant: for six hours, ten elite comedians are brought together in one big one Trapped in space, resisting the urge to giggle, it offers the viewer a rare focus of pure (and sometimes purely childish) laughter.
“As soon as I pitched the idea, I said to myself: Why didn’t I think of this before? ” recalls the presenter of these six episodes with Marie-Lyne Joncas, Rachid Badouri, Yves P. Pelletier, Arnaud Soly, Christine Morency, Laurent Paquin, Richardson Zéphir, Virginie Fortin, Mathieu Dufour and Edith Cochrane.
PHOTO CHARLES WILLIAM PELLETIER, THE PRESS
Part of the cast of LOL: Mathieu Dufour, Yves P. Pelletier, Arnaud Soly, Richardson Zéphir, Laurent Paquin and Patrick Huard
LOL – Who will have the last laugh? Could it bring together this young audience that Quebec productions have a hard time seducing since we’ve been writing a lot this fall? “Of course it’s an issue that bothers me, says Huard, but it’s our fault, this problem. I don’t know what else to say. “But still? Our man is visibly discouraged.
If your only answer to the fact that young people don’t care enough about Quebec culture is to say: Netflix and Co. are so big that we can’t compete with them, then let’s shut down our platforms. If young people are on Netflix, it may be because we talk about them more there than on our platforms.
Patrick Huard
It is reminiscent of the success of popular teen shows such as Le chalet, Complètement lycée or the mammoth gala. “It’s proof that when we challenge young people, when we represent them, when we give them the opportunity to tell their stories, young people will be there. »
A cinema without diversity
25 years ago, in December 1997, the first installment of The Boys franchise hit theaters and unexpectedly topped a certain American blockbuster at the box office. Comedy on Skates began a prosperous period for Quebec cinema, both in terms of quality and theater attendance.
IMAGE FROM THE MOVIE LES BOYS (1997), LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Remy Girard, Patrick Huard, Patrick Labbé, Marc Messier, Yvan Ponton and Serge Thériault in Les Boys (1997)
“I’m part of the gang that worked hard to stop people from saying that Quebec cinema sucks,” says Patrick Huard. The best compliment you could get back then was, It’s good… for a Quebec film. But we managed to make people proud of cinema in Quebec. And now I feel like we’ve fallen back into the same damn pattern. »
Without closing in complete dissatisfaction, which would go against the statistics, the director regrets an offer that he considers not diversified enough, perhaps not alien to the separation of the Cinéma Gala Québec, which he regretted. “We don’t do genre films, romantic comedies, biopics! It saddens me that we escape the baton to the great American machine. It’s simple, and I’m tired of repeating it: it takes all kinds of films, because each benefits from the success of the other. »
Back on stage?
Backslapping with comedians on the set of LOL: Who’ll Have the Last Laugh, which is what made Patrick Huard reconnect with the stage? “I’m starting to have a theme in my head,” says the one whose last show was in 2012. “I’d like to talk to my buddies. »
PHOTO LUC-SIMON PERREAULT, PRESS ARCHIVE
Patrick Huard at the Just for Laughs Festival 1993
Those using the word woke up everywhere? “Yeah, like it’s a zombie race!” [Il éclate de rire.] There is propaganda around this word that works. We want to demonize that like we wanted to demonize the feminist movement in another era. What the word “wake” tells us is simply to stay awake to what is going on around us. I can understand that some of my fellow friends are brewing. Yes, there can be exaggerations. But don’t come and tell me: Tsé, young people, today…”
Above all, don’t expect Patrick Huard to complain about not being able to say anything more. “It drives me nuts, the columnists who spend hours on their various platforms saying ‘I can’t say anything’. Man, stop saying you can’t say anything and say something. »
LOL – Who has the last laugh?, out January 6th on Prime Video