Éléonore Loiselle | This is just the beginning

A taxi driver recently asked Éléonore Loiselle if she was 10 years old. She has double that. The actress, quite petite, laughs about it. She has often been offered teenage roles since she was revealed at 15 by the film. Derivative, from director David Uloth. But never child roles …

Marc Cassivi
Press

Éléonore Loiselle embodies in Wars, first feature film by filmmaker Nicolas Roy (showing since Friday), a 20-year-old soldier who has a twisted relationship with her superior (David La Haye), an authoritarian sergeant of her father’s age, one of his former comrades in arms.

The role, physical and demanding, earned her the Best Actress Award for the 55^e Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. “I am very touched that my work is recognized,” she said. I am not the only actress to live on insecurity. We don’t see each other playing. We do not know what will be retained during the editing. It reassures! ”

Éléonore Loiselle, who we saw in the last year at the cinema in Social hygiene, by Denis Côté, as well as in The breakaway, popular TVA soap opera, grew up in Montreal, in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood. Her father, originally from Sainte-Foy, works in computer science, and her mother, born in the south of France, is a daycare educator. These are moviegoers who introduced their daughter to cinema very early on. “I developed a very young sensitivity to the game thanks to the films my mother presented to me,” says Éléonore, who particularly appreciates the filmmaker Leos Carax and his favorite actor Denis Lavant.

Of all the looks we have on his work, that of juries, that of criticism, it is that of his parents that remains the most important. “I trust them extremely. They support me a lot. I am lucky to have a very good relationship with my parents. They also trust me in my choices. ”

Her passion for gambling came to her in her teenage years, as a form of outlet for her school career, which she found difficult. Her older sister, Cassandre, is also an actress and studies theater at UQAM. “One day, I want to play with her! », Confides the autodidact, who would also like to study theater. “I want to explore something else in my game,” she says. And I don’t want to do the interpretation. I want to diversify. ”

She dreams of writing for the theater and is interested in disciplines as varied as puppet theater and dance. Everything that has to do with the body and its movement. She was fascinated, in this sense, by the interpretation of Agathe Rousselle in Titanium, by Julia Ducournau, most recent winner of the Palme d’Or. “She doesn’t have a lot of lines, but her whole game is in her eyes, in the way she moves, the way she breathes. There are several colors, several variations, several textures in the same body. It speaks to me a lot. ”

I point out to him that a lot has been said about the androgyny of the main character of Titanium and that it’s a term that comes up often when it comes to her and her boyish look.

His character in Wars has a vague kinship with the one that Agathe Rousselle interprets in Titanium, because of both the play with his body and his troubled relationship with a father figure. “He’s also a complex character. There aren’t many lines, but everything is inside, everything is in his head. There is a thread of tension between the two characters. There is love and hate. ”

The start of Éléonore Loiselle’s career was a whirlwind of strong proposals. Shortly after the shooting of Derivative, film in which his character of Océane is raped by a man who is double his age, Alix Dufresne offered him to play in the theatrical adaptation of The goddess of flies fire, by Geneviève Pettersen.

She was then recruited by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette for the film version of this rock and roll initiatory story to say the least. The role of Marie-Ève ​​earned her a nomination at the most recent Québec Cinéma gala in the category of best supporting actress. “I find it fascinating when the roles are difficult or far from me”, says the one we also saw in the series. Cerebrum at Radio-Canada.

If she is grateful to have been able to interpret such interesting roles at a young age, she has also already experienced a form of disillusionment with her profession. She bravely denounced a year ago in Press the conditions of a shoot that left her traumatized and angry.

He was made to shoot scenes of nudity, masturbation and rape without further warning. She was barely 18 and questioned herself a lot. “I couldn’t work after that,” she said. There was a camera in front of me and I was having a panic attack. ”

His testimony certainly did useful work. New measures have been put in place by the Union des artistes to better protect actors on sets. “It’s important to have good support when you start in the profession,” she says. We’re young, we don’t know everything. It’s good to be supported and advised by people who have more experience and maturity, to understand all the hazards.

Today, she assures, she is much better. She looks forward to her return to the stage in the cover of the play. Those who evaporated, by Rébecca Deraspe, at the Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui in April. We will be able to see her from December 16 in the series Gabrielle Roy’s world, on the Extra de Tou.tv, in the role of the sister of the great writer, as well as in Falcon Lake, first feature film by actress Charlotte Le Bon. And all of this is just the beginning.

The film Wars is in theaters and will be available on Crave starting November 21.