At 52, Laurent Paquin has already passed the age his father was when he died. For the time that remains, the one who will present this week his fifth one man show aspires to happiness. Exit therefore this bad faith and this cynicism which have devoured him from the inside for too long. He now reserves this resentment for the stage, which serves as a sort of catharsis.
Already in his previous show, Displease, Laurent Paquin was already tapping into all these frustrations that inhabit him, adopting a more raw tone on stage, which the public had not been familiar with until then. With Distracted Crocodile, he continues to dig this vein, even pushing the plug even further this time. “My humor is more and more cynical, but I am less and less cynical in life. Cynicism, and especially bad faith, I find very funny in humor. But, in life, it is much less so,” summarizes Laurent Paquin.
In this new show, he questions a lot about what it takes to be happy, not without scratching the skin in the process. coaches of life and other cryptogurus who offer all kinds of miracle recipes to achieve this. Laurent Paquin rather believes that happiness is not that simple, and, above all, it is very relative.
“The guy at the Olympics who won the bronze medal always looks happier than the guy who won the silver. However, the silver medal is better than the bronze medal. But whoever comes second, he expected to come first. Whereas the one who won the bronze, he is just happy to be on the podium. Happiness, that’s it. It’s all a question of perception,” he explains.
Child’s heart
The sad clown, Laurent Paquin has often been. Happiness is not easy for him, but he believes he is getting closer to it today alongside the woman with whom he has shared his life for around twenty years, and their two children. The first was diagnosed at the age of three with autism spectrum disorder, the second with significant learning problems. As many trials as life throws at him, but Laurent Paquin refuses to let himself be defeated.
“Of course it would have been easier to have two children who finished high school in five years, who had a normal career path. But what do you want, that’s life. I am very proud of my children and where they are,” he says with obvious emotion.
Fatherhood has visibly softened Laurent Paquin, who will publish his first children’s book at the same time as his new show. The work, which is also called The distracted crocodilewas illustrated by Éric Godin, cartoonist at Duty. The book is inspired by the first joke that Laurent Paquin invented when he was a child.
But don’t think that the comedian is now one of those gawky public figures who strings together banalities and insignificances in interviews. Laurent Paquin remains this man of convictions capable of a few rants. The same one who, during the stable spring, was displayed alongside the students who wore the red square.
“I still consider myself a left-wing person. But, the older I get, the more I understand that someone who has been told all their life that they shouldn’t be fagot, with big slaps on the face, is a little “fucked”. He might not react well to seeing a guy with Cutex on TV. That doesn’t mean he’s right. Obviously he’s wrong. We have to tell him to evolve. But that doesn’t mean we should start calling him a big reactionary cry,” he tempers.
Free thinker
The comedian hates echo chambers and would hate to be considered a moralizer. He wants to continue to perform in front of as many people as possible, including those who don’t think like him. If they change their minds thanks to this show, so much the better. If not so be it ;Laurent Paquin tells himself that he will have at least made them laugh. His humor does not pretend to convince anyone.
“I don’t like debates, I like discussions. In a debate, everyone stays in their position. It’s sterile. But a discussion allows you to exchange, to learn. And it may be that in the end, you realize that what the other person says makes good sense. Me, if I’m invited on TV in a debate against Richard Martineau, we won’t agree on anything. But if we go for a drink together, I’m sure we can get along well and find points of agreement,” reasons the comedian, who starred in the play all summer long. The idiots’ dinner.
Approaching 30 years of career, Laurent Paquin can afford to say what he thinks. On independence for example, yet far from being the topic of the day in Quebec. “I am as sovereignist as before, if not more,” he even takes the trouble to clarify, worried about the decline of French. “The more globalization advances, the more we must define ourselves as an autonomous people. There are people who say that sovereignty means closing yourself off from the rest of the world, but it is precisely the opposite. Sovereignty, the way I see it, is precisely a way of existing elsewhere on the planet. »
On the other hand, you will never see him campaign, much less run, for the Parti Québécois. Nor for any other party, for that matter, which flees activists of all kinds.
“The activist is precisely the one who prefers debate, but who is closed to discussion. The activist wants to gain something. He will be angry that his case is improving, because he will tell himself that this takes away his arguments. The union activist will be upset if the fate of workers improves because it does not go in the direction of his interests. The sovereignist activist is the one who does not want French to progress because it would harm his quest. But for me, if the situation of French improves, I would just be happy,” slips the comedian, too free-thinking to confine himself to a cause.