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Roy Dupuis was born on April 21, 1963, in New Liskeard, Ontario. He spent a significant portion of his childhood (from early infancy until he was eleven years old) in Amos, which is in a region of Québec called Abitibi, before moving from there to Kapuskasing, Ontario, for the next three years, when he learned to speak English. His father (now deceased) was a traveling salesman for Canada Packers, a meat company (now part of Maple Leaf Foods). His mother, who is still living, is a piano teacher. He has a younger brother and an older sister. When he was fourteen, after his parents divorced, his mother moved the family to Sainte-Rose, Laval, Québec (in the greater Montréal area), where he finished high school. After high school, he studied acting in Montréal, at the National Theatre School of Canada (L'École nationale de théâtre du Canada), from which he was graduated in 1986.Acting was not Roy's first career choice. He was studying physics, but after seeing Ariane Mnouchkine's film Molière, he was bitten by the acting bug. His entry into drama school was accidental. A friend had secured himself an audition at the National Theatre School of Canada but then decided he no longer wanted to do the audition, so Roy took his place. Although he himself was not actually the expected candidate for the audition, the director was sufficiently impressed by his potential to offer him a place. He was graduated in 1986, and after a successful start in the theater, he began to be offered substantial roles in films and TV in 1988.The relative anonymity that he enjoyed during the early years disintegrated when "Filles de Caleb, Les" (1990) (Emilie) lit up the television screens of 80% of the population of Québec, turning him into a celebrity overnight and gaining him several awards for his outstanding performance as Emilie's husband, Ovila Pronovost. His next major role was as a journalist in the Canadian TV series "Scoop" (1991-95), which ran for 4 seasons. In 1991 Roy also starred in his first major film role, as the gay hustler, Yves, in Jean Beaudin's internationally acclaimed Being at Home with Claude (1992), which was Canada's official selection at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Other leading roles in French followed, and increasingly English language roles too, including Screamers (1995) which marked his entry into mainstream US cinema.For the next five years, from 1996 to 2000, he spent most of his time in Toronto, making the TV series Nikita (1997-2001), which was shown in more than 50 countries around the world. When the final season finished production at the end of 2000, Roy returned to Montréal, for a few months' well-earned rest, before starting work again on French-Canadian projects made closer to home. The TV mini-series "Dernier chapitre, Le" (2002) (mini), about biker gang warfare, broke new ground by shooting French and English versions simultaneously. In complete contrast he also teamed up again with "Chili's Blues" director Charles Binamé to star as love-interest Alexis Labranche in a remake of a period Québec classic, Séraphin: un homme et son péché (2002), which became the province's highest-grossing film.After 2002, he entered the busiest period in his film career, combining leading roles with the occasional supporting role. First was Denys Arcand's Invasions barbares, Les (2003) (The Barbarian Invasions), which has enjoyed even greater international success than Jésus de Montréal (1989), with Roy again playing a very minor part as a police drug-unit detective. 2004/5 saw the release of six more films, one of which,Mémoires affectives (2004), brought him his first major film-acting awards.He recently re-incarnated the part of French-Canadian hockey hero Maurice "Rocket" Richard (for the third time) in the film Maurice Richard (2005) directed by Charles Binamé to large acclaim. He has also completed an independent film, "That Beautiful Somewhere," which is based on the 1992 novel "Loon," by Bill Plumstead; it will be broadcast on Canadian pay television in 2006 and possibly screened in film festivals in fall 2006.Roy Dupuis lives in the countryside outside of Montréal. While, in the past, he enjoyed sky-diving and still enjoys golf, he has become more occupied with learning to sail and renovations on his home and sailboats. For over a decade, he has been an active supporter of the Mira Foundation, which provides guide dogs for visually-impaired children and adults and service dogs for those with other disabilities. A few years ago, he co-founded the Rivers Foundation to protect the rivers of Canada from exploitation by hydro-electric developments, and, currently, he serves as its co-president. |
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