As a screenwriter, director, producer, actor and editor, Xavier Dolan always invests fully in his projects. However, this enormous pressure that he always puts on himself weighs heavily on his shoulders, so that he seriously considers taking a break from directing.
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“I really gave myself 200% to this project in a whole, passionate and even aggressive way,” admits the filmmaker of the making of The Night Laurier Gaudreault Woke Up, his first TV series, which premiered on April 24 November is expected at the club.
“But at the same time, I really don’t want to do this job anymore. I am tired. The year is 2022 and the world has changed drastically. I, in this world, don’t necessarily feel the need to tell stories and relate to myself anymore. I want to take time to be with my friends and family. I want to do commercials and one day build a house in the country when I have enough money saved. I don’t say that sadly at all. I just want to live something different, have different experiences.”
It is not the director’s work as such that exhausts him. In fact, he says he had a blast making The Night When Laurier Gaudreault Wake Up. Rather, what he finds “disheartening” and “sucking” is having to go through all the production steps.
“If I could do a movie or a series and then disappear, I would do it,” he says. But we know that there is preparation before shooting and then all the stages of post-production. I don’t think I’m really cut out for it.”
And the cinema?
Dolan hasn’t given up cinema, his first love, but he says he has no film project in the works at the moment. The mixed successes of his last two feature films – My Life with John F. Donovan and Matthias and Maxime – obviously bothered him.
“The fact that Donovan was released a month before Matthias and Maxime destroyed the two films, he laments. Of course, you don’t spend all your time sweating your butt making a movie that only five people can see!
While waiting to find inspiration for another project, the filmmaker is excited to share with the public the night Laurier Gaudreault woke up.
“It matters a lot if there’s a reflection on life, death, grief, redemption, family in this show,” he states. It’s quite a global and existential work. And maybe that’s my way of saying goodbye for a while…”