The Schmidt Tourbillon | The Press

As much as we loved hating the terrible Nancy Riopelle in District 31as much as we love to love Isabelle Granger in Status, this big-hearted surgeon who is so clumsy in human relationships. In this role, Geneviève Schmidt succeeds in moving us and making us laugh even when she announces the worst news to her patients.

This big difference is what particularly appeals to the actress in her work. “What matters to me is the present moment when we shoot,” she explains. If I’m fine, I’ll give you the moon and do whatever you want. I know it’s going to be good, and I know the audience is going to be happy. This is my pay. Shoot a scene from Status for example, and knowing that the public is going to freak out. I arrive home and I tell myself that I have the best job in the world. »

Of course she knew it, since she grew up backstage at the Théâtre des Cascades that her parents had bought when she was little. Through the holes in the decor, she never stopped observing the public.

“Comedy is a rhythm, and I learned there with super good shows and flops. With actors where the mayonnaise did not stick, with gangs who still talk to each other 22 years later. I’ve seen dramas, people who lose their parents and come to play a comedy at night, I’ve seen love stories and separations, but in the end, you’re going to make the audience laugh. The show must go on. »

But the desire to become an actress? It happened quite late, because she preferred the backstage where she did all the trades. She saw herself much more behind, in the shadows, than in the spotlight. And yet, if there is an actress who captures the light, it is Geneviève Schmidt. When she walks into a room, all you see is her, with her long blond mane and mischievous face. And that, the people of cast may have seen it before her, because it was while giving the line to friends twice during their theater school auditions that she was told that she absolutely had to audition too. “I was a bit like my Roy Dupuis, I think, she jokes. I said I didn’t believe in schools. »

Geneviève Schmidt ended up taking the leap and completing her training at the National Theater School in 2008, when she was 30, surrounded by students who were not yet 20 years old. As soon as she left school, she worked hard, first at the theater. We then saw it on TV in Breakups, The beautiful discomforts, Unit 9, District 31, The blue house, The breakaway, The complicated life of Léa Olivier And Statusbut also at the cinema where she is currently showing in the film Bungalow by Lawrence Côté-Collins, and in the next film by Denys Arcand, Will.

She is even where you least expect her. It was not easy to accept the animation of the Gala Québec Cinéma in the difficult conditions of the pandemic, which she did with joy for two years. She also finds the disappearance of this event very unfortunate, because she considers it important that Quebec cinema have visibility. “We like to catch up on films for the Oscars, why wouldn’t we do that for Quebec films? »

Finally, another surprise in her career: she is the new narrator of the reality show the island of love. The first woman to do so in this popular television format in 25 countries. “Where you think I’m going, tell yourself that I’m going to the other side, she notes. It is very important for me. I want to surprise myself in my choices and it’s never a financial choice, it’s always a choice of the heart. I always have a reason. No one expected me to do the island of love and that’s what I liked. »

In a whirlwind

Despite a large screen presence, we don’t seem to know much about Geneviève Schmidt, who says she is a solitary and “uninteresting” person. She even describes herself as old fashioned, she who does not own a computer and who still deposits her checks at the bank counter. A first in class too, since she rewrites all her texts by hand and from memory before going on stage, the best way for her to know if she has her lines well.

One of her work engines is precisely that she has the impression with each project that the public does not know her. “So I have to show her that I’m a good actress and that they did well to choose me. »

But the public identifies a lot with her, because she receives hundreds of messages every day, especially since the role of Jessica in Unit 9, a turning point in his career. Women at the head of single-parent families who confided to him that they had had suicidal thoughts or had come close to committing irreparable harm with their child. She remembers that one day in Florida, a mother and her daughter argued in front of her, one saying that she was the actress who made her laugh the most and the other saying that she was the actress. which made her cry the most. The big gap, again.

And his life, in the last few months, has been a whirlwind. Through multiple projects that require her to learn from 30 to 80 pages per week, she has experienced a separation, and lives in boxes because she is about to move to the South Shore after having lived more than ten years in the North.

Is work taking up too much space for this hard-working worker? “No, I think I’m not lucky!” she says laughing. During Unit 9, my father had Alzheimer’s, and doing this show was my therapy. Same thing with Nancy Riopelle, when something else was happening in my private life. Actors often have stories like that. You are in love and you are going to play the most beautiful declaration in the same day. My personal life is not a long calm river, but with the team of Status, we really stick together, we stick together, and we laugh a lot. You want to be there every day. »

And that’s perhaps also why viewers never tire of seeing her daily, because Geneviève Schmidt is precisely where she wants to be, that is to say where she will always surprise us. .