Louise Portal has established herself as one of the leading actresses of Quebec cinema. After fifty years spent shining on the big screen, she will now be honored by the Gala Québec Cinéma with an Iris tribute award for her entire rich career: the perfect opportunity for an interview at open heart. For the account, the name “Louise Portal” and the expression “open heart” are synonyms. Transparency requires, it must be said that Louise is a kind of fairy godmother for the author of these lines. Interview in the tone of confidence, therefore.
What is your first memory related to cinema?
I remember very well going to see with my sister Pauline [Lapointe] The parent catcher (The Parent Trap ; 1961), from the Disney studios, to the Imperial cinema, in Chicoutimi. It was the story of twins, like us, so that spoke to me. It was the first time I could identify with a twin character in a film. Subsequently, there was Jules and Jim… Jeanne Moreau has become my model, my idol. Years later, François Truffaut wrote me a beautiful letter after having read my first book: it is in the preface of my novel The actress.
As a child, was it one of your dreams to become an actress?
Oh yes ! With Pauline, we played “à la madame”, we dressed up… As a child, I filled scrapbooks – they are returned to the National Archives – with photos of actresses of the time: Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale … I was fantasizing. In the 1980s I wrote the song Scrapbookwhich is autobiographical.
Your first movie Bull, by Clément Perron, was released almost 50 years ago. What memory do you keep?
I keep a bright memory of it. That’s really where I discovered cinema.
I had already done television, in La p’tite Semaine, and the Paradis Perdu teletheatre, at Radio-Canada, for which I had received exceptional permission from the Conservatoire. But there, I found myself in the elements. By that I mean that we were shooting in Beauce, on the banks of the river, in a village, in a barn, in a real country house… Suddenly I was no longer locked up in a studio: it was the real life. I remember saying to myself: “Cinema is that. It was in line with my nature as an actress: I’m instinctive, emotional, I’m not an intellectual. Being in a real bar, with real beer, helps me. I love when reality invites itself into fiction.
Speaking of “real bar”, from the opening of Bullyour character offers a number of striptease. At the time, were you nervous? Did you have any doubts?
In life, I was then very modest, but in my work, not at all. If someone asked me something, I did it. On the other hand, if I didn’t “feel” it, I said so. For example, during the filming of theDecline of the American Empirein the locker room scene where I am in my bra, with my back to the camera, Denys [Arcand] asked me if I would take off my pants so that I was just in my underwear. I refused, I didn’t see the point. Denys did not insist, because he has this sensitivity, this respect. Conversely, years later, when I was filming The mechanic, there is this love scene in the barn between Normand D’Amour and me: he was naked and I had my jeans on. Between two takes, the director, Renée Beaulieu, came to see us and asked us if we would mind being naked together. I replied, “No problem! It’s a wonderful scene, which spoke to many women of my generation, because it’s rare to see a woman in her sixties naked on screen. But in short, I have always taken responsibility for my choices.
One of the most striking films of your filmography is precisely The Decline of the American Empire. Were you aware, during filming, that you were part of a page in the history of Quebec cinema?
I had no idea how big it would be, but I knew that film was exceptional. I mean… the script is a gem; it’s brilliant. Denys is so smart, relevant; he is a visionary. The cast chemistry was amazing. Finding them all, seventeen years later, for Les invasions barbares, was such a gift. And knowing that Denys had continued to think of us… For an actress, an actor, when you know that a filmmaker with whom you experienced something important and beautiful continues to think of you, it’s very precious.
For a good part of your career, there has often been this common denominator of sensuality, whether it’s an iconic character like Cordelia or mature roles, like in Full Blast, The Orphan Muses Where To the south. This image of sensuality, of sex symbolhas it ever weighed you?
It never weighed on me. It did, however… invite me, a word I prefer to “forced”, to make wise choices. In BullI was 22, I was good, I was cuteI was doing a striptease… It is certain that afterwards, I had plenty of offers for films sexy, focused on nudity. I turned down four or five films because I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. Sensuality was an asset, but it involved management very early on. I had a vision for the future. I wanted more than just serving a role with my physique. I said to myself: “I have an inner life and I want it to be able to cross the screen, transcend the incarnation. I wasn’t afraid to wait. If you look at my filmo, in 1972, there are three films, and after, there is a quiet period. Then, in 1979-1980, there is suddenly Cordelia and die loud. I had these projects on my way because I waited for them. Perhaps I would have altered, weakened my journey, if I had accepted these other films beforehand.
At one point, in your filmography, with Wolves of Sophie Deraspe to be exact, we feel a desire to break this image.
It’s a role that called on all my humanity, all my background as a woman and as an actress. I would have liked to have white hair, but I was working on soap operas and it was not possible. But I let myself grow a good white regrowth. This regrowth was an affirmation. When I did Paul in Quebec then in the front it’s my white hair and in the back it’s like a white half wig. Thereafter, I wore my white hair. It’s so liberating. I love that it’s no longer the actress who decides what the woman does. It’s an important step: you have to accept aging on screen and take responsibility for yourself. I am 72 years old, and I am proud of it.
Has your approach to work changed over the years?
I started in the business without the support of an agency. I had a lot of ambition. I did not hesitate to come forward. For two years, and this is a positive aspect of the pandemic, I have let go a lot. At the moment, I don’t have a TV project, and I have a distant film project. But I’m not lacking. I am fulfilled by literature, by my conferences… I have reached a stage where there is no longer any character between people and me. I am no longer in ambition, but in transmission.
Thanks to this Iris tribute, what kind of assessment do you draw up?
I feel such gratitude… But I would like to answer you with a passage from The actress : « This night in this Gaspésie of my last rest, I revisit my life. It is like this every time I open one of my notebooks. Today my hair is white. I haven’t cheated for a long time. Youth and seduction and beauty are irretrievably gone. Here I am anonymous with all my time to close notebooks and suitcases, and close this journey in Nostalgia. I’m sitting on a very long life, as long as my hair now laying in foamy waves on my bent back from so many roles over the years. »