Posted at 6:00 a.m.
Marc Cassivi: In Three times nothing, you play a Quebec character…
Antoine Bertrand: Yes. The three main actors, we were in Nadège’s first film [Loiseau]. She wrote scores for us. I told him not to fuss about writing in Québécois! We adapted the dialogues.
M. C.: You also play a Quebec director [qui dirige Gérard Lanvin] in I love what you do. It is the French invasion of Antoine Bertrand the Quebecer…
AB: It’s funny. When I played it [dans Les pays d’en haut], I read a letter from Curé Labelle in his Travel in France and he said: “They want Curé Labelle and I give them so much and more.” I had found it beautiful because he had understood basically what was his specificity, his attraction there. Obviously, I do not think that I will always be able to impose to play the Quebecer. But at some point, I understood, after Tomorrow it all starts [en 2016, dans lequel il jouait un Français aux côtés d’Omar Sy], that I was not so free. I repeat it often: I don’t absolutely want to make a career in France. So I always say to the producers: I think it’s better for the film and it’s better for you [que je joue un Québécois].
M. C.: And it seems to work…
AB: That’s the bet I’m making. My next film, that’s it. They offered me a French role, I offered to play a Quebecer and they accepted. It makes me feel a lot freer, I feel a lot more comfortable and a lot funnier, when it’s comedies. I’m happy because so far people are accepting the deal and aren’t disappointed in the end. The reality of people in France is that they all know a Quebecer or have family who live in Quebec. The French love us! They know we’re real; that we are cash, as they say! [Rires]
M. C.: Things have evolved, I think. Barely 10 years ago, a Quebec film was presented with subtitles in France. That you repeatedly play Quebec characters is still the sign of an important evolution.
AB: I think there was a lack of effort on their part to just try to understand us. It was also in good faith to say: “We don’t understand anything! Then there was also perhaps a somewhat haughty look. But I think that over the years, with the huge French diaspora in Montreal, with internet access to interviews, films and youtubers from here, it’s a reality now that’s closer to them. We know that things do not change easily in France. But I think that with the strength of mediums and people who are walking more and more around our house, there is a small movement.
M. C.: In this case, it also takes people who believe in you…
AB: It takes producers who support you. I don’t have a name in France. For a producer to say that his main character is a guy that people don’t know much about, he has to be ready to go to bat for you. Those who trust me want to give me a chance and introduce myself to the public. They say, “We’re going to make the film with less money, but we want to make it with you. »
What I like is the opportunity to surprise people for the first time, at 45 years old, whereas at home, I have to dig 100 times harder in my toolbox to be able to surprise. It’s a gift.
Antoine-Bertrand
M. C.: I was just reading in variety the producers of Three times nothing [aussi producteurs des Misérables de Ladj Ly] sing your praises and say that they want to “open a new path for Quebec talent in French popular culture”. It’s quite exceptional.
AB: As projects are sometimes first written for French people, we are not in the service of Quebecers or in folklore. We tell the story of a guy and it happens that he is from Quebec. In Nadège’s film, we don’t explain her origins at all. It’s just reality. People agree to follow or not. So far, in light of the screening at the festival, it sticks! [Rires]
M.C.: People laugh…
A. B.: Yes, but not only that. When we left the room, there was not a dry eye. The characters are three wanderers. They’re endearing, but they’re also battered and street-worn. Their sanity is on the verge of tipping over to something not very cool. It’s good food for an actor.
M. C.: You say that you don’t necessarily want to make a career in France, but projects are piling up there for you. What is your relationship to this French career?
AB: It happens at the right age, because it allows me to experience it completely as a dilettante. There is no secret. If you want to push here, you have to be there. That’s why I’m here this week. Honestly, I hesitated to come. Now is not the time to travel. I’m here because it may give me opportunities later. I take it as a gift, knowing very well that my career is with us and that I have no shortage of work in Quebec. I have the best of both worlds, because I love France and the French. It allows me to come and make sauces here. But I don’t have a French agent and there’s no ambiguity about where it’s going for me. The rest is extra sweetness.
M. C.: France is grave…
AB: I didn’t dare say gravity. But if you say so, that’s okay! [Rires]
M. C.: We see you less with us all the same, don’t we?
AB: I haven’t shot a single day in 2021. I call it laziness, but I think I’ve been taking more time for myself for a couple of years. I like it, because I don’t disgust the world with my presence. He’s entertaining, Antoine, but a little too much Antoine can get boring! [Rires]
M. C.: Taking more time for yourself, is that related to the health problems you have had? [Il a subi un infarctus en 2016.]
AB: Without wanting to trivialize what I experienced, I think it’s mainly related to the age and the workload that I absorbed during the first 10 years, even the first 15 years of my career. I worked a lot because it was time to make a name for myself. By nature, I am rather lazy. Not at work, but between two contracts. I have a lot of fun occupying my time with something other than my job. I have no children. I don’t need millions to live. I have a fairly modest lifestyle. And I like to relax! I’ve had the chance to work on projects that have had an impact, which means that the phone, even if I answer less often, still rings. I am well aware that not everyone has this privilege. They say that movement brings movement and that’s how it is in our business. My goal is to continue working as long as possible. If I have to shift into second gear, I’ll adapt, but for now, that’s how I run my boat. She doesn’t seem to be taking on water or sinking… My God, what a shitty nautical metaphor! [Rires] So far, it seems to be working.