Pierre Brassard does not hide being inhabited by a certain nervousness a few days before the premiere of 2022 revised and corrected of the green curtain. Will this first participation in the series of end-of-year shows give him a taste of the stage? The comedian-animator-actor-designer has long cherished a project of first one man showbut everything in its time, he tempers.
Despite his 35-year career, the ex-Powder Blue is much more comfortable on a television set than on the boards, he who has already appeared in no less than seven Bye Bye. “It’s more stressful than a Bye Bye. In both cases, there are sketches which can be cut, which can be dropped at the last minute, which can be added. But Reviewed and corrected, we must not lose sight that it is on stage. That is rediculous ! There is an urgency that is greater. It’s a one-and-a-half-hour marathon every night as the Bye Byeyes, there are texts to learn, but we only shoot once”, he illustrates.
Before saying yes to the Green Curtain, Pierre Brassard had only one real experience on stage, the play Boy ! in 2019. However, when he was offered this summer to join the cast of 2022 Revised and corrected, it is without hesitation that he answered in the affirmative. The opportunity was too good to do what he excels at: embody delirious characters and imitate well-known personalities.
The Green Curtain does not want to leave any clues about the actors of the news who will be parodied during this retrospective of the year. But already, we can expect Pierre Brassard to take on the features of Pierre Bruneau, one of his favorite imitations, to mark the retirement of the venerable TVA anchor this year.
The fear of risk
If Pierre Brassard is so accurate when he imitates Pierre Bruneau, it is no doubt because he too could have become a star presenter. The anecdote was told in almost every interview he gave, but as a reminder: Pierre Brassard was aiming for a career as a “serious” journalist after completing his studies at Cégep de Jonquière in art and media technology. But his life completely changed in 1987, when he won the final of the Just for Laughs auditions.
The path is clear for a career as a stage comedian, but the new TQS channel will quickly grab hold of him. With100 Limit, he will become one of the headliners of the Black Sheep. The TV projects will then follow, and the first one man show has been continually put off indefinitely ever since.
“It has marked my entire career in the end. With the Blue powder, it had passed close, but finally, we were offered a radio show. From time to time I talk about it, without it necessarily being an ambition. I know no one is asking me for it either. But more and more, I receive messages from people who ask me when I’m going to do my first show, ”says Pierre Brassard, who has started writing a few numbers here and there.
I might end up doing it one day [le spectacle solo], but honestly, I don’t know. Everything I do on TV and radio is a lot of work. But the stage is virtuosity. In Reviewed and correctedthere are authors, other actors… I feel supported.
He even recently went to test equipment in Terrebonne. The reaction has been positive, but something continues to hold him back. Like a fear of not being up to it. Stepping too far out of your comfort zone.
“Maybe I’ll end up doing it one day, but honestly, I don’t know. Everything I do on TV and radio is a lot of work. But the stage is virtuosity. In Reviewed and corrected, there are authors, other actors… I feel supported. In a one man showI know that there would also be people around me, but still, I would have a lot of compromises to make”, fears Pierre Brassard, who suddenly seems overwhelmed with a great feeling of insecurity. .
The times are changing
Today, it is at the microphone of The day (is still young) that he most felt like he was in his element. After having mainly given in a more absurd style, even left field, with Marc Labrèche in the last years, The day (is still young) also allows him to reconnect with the caustic humor of his debut with the Bleu Poudre. In 100 Limitthen to Let’s tease the planet, Pierre Brassard and his acolytes took pleasure in brushing against the limits of the acceptable. Pierre Brassard still likes to play on this line, but he knows too well that the tolerance threshold is lower than at the time of the Blue powder.
“I’ve calmed down in recent years and I want to get back to what I was. But I also understand that the codes have changed. When Powder Blue started, there was RBO. The table was set for silly and wicked humor. It was also the time of Hot pepperwhere bitched en masse. We had no restraint, we didn’t ask ourselves any questions. We made jokes about the rumors of homosexuality of certain Canadian players. We couldn’t do that today,” he points out, without nostalgia or remorse.
He does not regret having sealed the wedding of Michèle Richard in her Raymond Beaudoin costume. His character as a whimsical reporter, the ancestor of Infoman, is also famous for having exhausted the patience of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, which Pierre Brassard assumes perfectly, even if it earned him a kick in the balls. from the former prime minister.
He agrees, however, that Raymond Beaudoin went too far with Celine Dion by evoking his relationship with René Angélil at the time when the love affair between the singer and her manager was an open secret in the artistic world, but that it had not yet been unveiled to the general public. In 1994, the team of Let’s tease the planet would have dreamed that Raymond Beaudoin would go one better and invite himself to René and Céline’s wedding, but Pierre Brassard refused out of modesty. Three years before Celine performed the theme song for titanicRaymond Beaudoin had hit his iceberg.
“People often ask me if Raymond Beaudoin is coming back. It might exist on social media, but on TV, I don’t think. Let’s say that I would invite myself to launches as in the past, people today would ask for a right of inspection. Maybe it’s possible, we don’t know until we’ve done it, but it sure would be complicated, ”he apprehends.
Raymond Beaudoin’s disguise is always stored somewhere at home, at the back of a wardrobe. As for his first one man showPierre Brassard closes the door to the idea of bringing Raymond Beaudoin out of the mothballs, but not twice.