Juste entre toi et moi - Sylvie Léonard

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Dans un rare long entretien, la comédienne Sylvie Léonard parle de son amour sacré pour le théâtre et de sa relation privilégiée avec sa cousine, la regrettée poète Marie Uguay. Elle revient aussi sur la création de la série Un gars, une fille et célèbre les vertus de la vulnérabilité.

Hi, this is Dominique Tardif. Welcome. To Juste, between you and me, welcome to an episode of Juste entre toi et moi, putting the comedian in your mind, Sylvie Léonard. The pretext of our interview is the recent arrival on the 2.tv extra of 12 new episodes of the series Un gars, une fille, the series that Guillaume Page and Sylvie have resurrected in 2023. But we also talked a lot during this interview about Marie-Huguet. Marie-Huguet, this great,uguet is one of the greatest Quebec poet.

Marie-Huguet was taken by cancer in 1981. She was only 26 years old. Marie-Huguet was Sylvie Léonard's cousin. So I feel very privileged that she agreed to talk to me about her. I remind you that you can read the article I drew from this meeting in the Press Plus, on the Press.ca or in your phones thanks to the mobile application of the press. And to put you in context at the beginning of what you are going to hear,

Sylvie was asking me some questions about my daughters and I asked her if she had any young children in her life. So here is my interview with the existentialist, et je lui demandais en retour si elle avait elle-même de jeunes enfants dans sa vie. Alors voici sans plus tarder mon entretien avec l'existentialiste, Sylvie Léonard. It will remain between you and me For once It will remain between you and me I'm very close with young neighbors. I've been living in my house for so long that I see the houses sell,

and young families arrive. And I'm really like a free grandmother. You know, in the sense that I want all the little kids in the neighborhood. I've pampered Edouard and Arthur, and now I'm in my... How do you pamper them? I talk to them.

And I get along. It's very funny because at the beginning, I knew at what time they were leaving for school. But parents are adorable too because I have fun with parents who are about 38. My age. But at the beginning, I was thinking, OK, I'm going to go out to the streets when they go to school.

When I get along. So I love them. OK, I'm going to take out the trash when they go to school, when they're ready to be. So I've collected them. I've collected them, my children. What does their presence in your daily life bring you? Affection, magic, the pure moment. Like Edouard, at one point, he was with my husband and he was doing legos. He was in the construction of the tower and it was very important to find the right man to go into the tower. All this universe of magic, of spontaneity, I'm crazy about it.

Is it in this spirit that you have to dive back in when you play? Yes. Why do we call that playing? There's a very strong part of playing. Yes, there's rigor, there's work, there's all that, but... We're in the present moment. When you're at the theater, you're in the present moment. It happens there. That's theater, That's my passion.

Your eyes light up when you pronounce my theater. Yes, I have no doubt about it. For me, it's really the only place where I don't insomnia. You know, if I have a bad sleep and I want to take a nap, it's in a theater room. Whatever the theater, I can lie down on the floor, there's a peck that sets in and I sleep. So you can deduce that you slept in all the lodges, all the theaters in Montreal, roughly?

All the theaters where I played, I slept at least once in the lodge. But what's so impressive about these places? Well, you know, it's the Lord of the... I imagine people feel that in some churches, or it's the Lord of the, in the order of the intimate. A lodge is really like my room. It becomes my room, it becomes a cocoon. So there is a lot of security going on in a theater lodge.

Do you bring a lot of gray objects in your lodge? Not a lot, but always the same. Which ones? Jean-Louis Millette gave me Not much, but always the same. Which ones? Jean-Louis Millette gave me something, Jean Besséré. It's attached to certain productions, to memories, André Brassard, some people. Yes, there are things about my daughter,

because my daughter is always part of my life. But then some words that people have written to me, I concentrate on reducing them a little. You're pure. Yes, but it has to be like an order too. And that's what's beautiful. There's a photographer who had made the book, and I praise him.

Yes. And that book is very beautiful. And it's very revealing revealing about the actors. How we set up our place while we're there. We take it to... And there's the mess. It was fantastic. There are actors, it's the mess.

And there's a lot of things. We have a little ritual before we play. It's beautiful. And also seeing... Because I say it's my job, but I liked to see comedians that I know, but with whom I haven't worked, transform themselves while you arrive, you're yourself. And quietly, because it's you who put on makeup,

even if the makeup artist designed the makeup, it's you who does it a week later. The transformation, entering this world, it was extraordinary. Can I ask you what Jean Bessery, Jean-Louis Millette and André Brasseur offered you? The objects you always keep with you? Yes, André Brasseur was a little dolphin. I don't remember what it meant, but he was a very small dolphin. Jean-Louis Millette was an egg, a little coconut in wood.

And he follows me all the time. And Jean Besserie is a champagne can with 25 bottles in it. I don't remember the story. But there was a story. Yes, there was surely a story. It was about making a wish and all that. So these three are still with me. You played in a production of La Charge de l'Original et Pormiable,

directed by André Brassard, Claude Gauvreau's great play, which I didn't see because I was too young. You were too young. But I would have liked to see it, because what a great play, what a great director. It was a big success too. How do you prepare for such a monumental text, and also, I don't know how to describe it,

so complex? Well, it takes a good captain, that's for sure. And André Brassard was, well, everyone said, everyone who worked with André loved it. And I remember when we read that piece, because I saw it at TNM with Gilles Renaud a very, very long time ago. And it was a bit... It felt like it was going through space. The whole concept of costumes was quite unique. You know, you can take that piece and create a very special place.

So, André Brassard called us in and said, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. That was the first sentence. I don't know, we're going to find that together. And I have ideas. And all of a sudden, he decided to install it. It became clear to him that he was going to install it in the 50s. So creating characters,

Adele, it looked like Simone de Beauvoir, me, Juliette Gréco. The references were those years of creation, where there were a lot of people who tried to break the conventions. You know, we remember classical theater, and we couldn't talk in joual. on the theater. And we couldn't speak in joual. So that was a bit of it. And then it was building that.

And André never keeps an integral text. He moves. He moves the lines. He changes things. So it was until the last day, changes still, no, no, you're going to go through that door. That, we take that away, that, we're going to put it in.

I remember that we were all the time learning our text. And at the first, we gave him, all the actors, we gave him a huge frame where we chose in our text the most sophisticated, most complex page of notes.

We did a montage of that and when we gave it to him, he laughed and thought it was great, but he was shocked because he said, it's not possible. It's also important to know that it's a text that is already absurd where there is not always a link, in fact, there's rarely a link when you read it. It's crazy. I think the success of this piece is due to its staging

and the universe in which it placed it, because there was all of a sudden a kind of logic and an incredible sense. How did you fall in love with this sacred place called the theater? Well, I often tell the same story. That doesn't mean people read it to me. I can repeat it. I don't know, it's the pretension that everyone knows my life.

But it's funny because Kim Yaroshevskaia died this week. I was very, very, very young. And I've always liked books and reading. But when I saw TV for the first time, I was about 3 1 2 1, 4 years old, I was young. And it was a movie, it was a surprise. And even if I'm a public, I'm a winner, in advance. I have a horror movie, I'm scared, even if I know the effects. I'm a very, very good audience. So even as a child, even if I knew that it was people who played characters, I was completely involved in the story, but I said, I'm going to do this later.

And it had to be my mother, my father or the adults around me who said, What is this? Well, I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to tell stories about the characters, and I was very, very happy. And it had to be my mother, my father or the adults around me who said, What is this? Well, I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to tell stories like that while I'm alive.

So it didn't mean just reading the book and reading aloud. It was that I was going to do this. So at one point I learned that it was called comedy. And yet it was TV. But the first time I went to the theater, I was very, very, very young. I went to see a play with Yvonne Deschamps and Margot Campbell, which was called Les Fantastiques.

It had been a long time. And the emotions I had in that place, I said, OK, and there's that too. It's not just TV. I love it, but it's this place. So even as a spectator, I go into a theater, I can go there alone, I love it. Going on stage, I love it. So it's the furthest I remember.

How old were you when you first started playing? About ten years, maybe. But what was the most powerful sentence? Tell stories while you're alive. Yes, that's it. And I remember that. I remember repeating that. Yes, but that's it.

And I had, like many other little girls, at my age, there was a series of books called Martin, Martin makes theater. So, Martin makes theater, you see? There was an image, a striking image, a chest with costumes, and I was like, oh, that's it, you can put on costumes and tell stories. And we lived for almost three years in New Brunswick. My father was an engineer. And there are some people in New Brwick residents because they were building the bridge,

the bridge of Campbellton, the bridge that connects the Ballet de la Bataipédia in Quebec. So we stayed there. I didn't go to school, there was no nursery, there was no... And we stayed in a very old house where there was a big staircase. And in that staircase, there were benches you know, with bulls on top. And I dressed them up, and I gave them names. And they were characters. And that's what I did. It was your theater troupe?

It was my theater troupe. I also had cardboard boxes. I have photos there. Well, my father had photos. I have cardboard boxes with laundry laundry,, things, and then I open a theater curtain. So I saw, before going to the theater, I saw books where there was actually theater. Am I wrong or did your aunt play in the surprise box? Yes, my aunt, Huguette Huguet, who is a famous teacher of diction, was Mrs. Pecksec. So were you in contact with that universe

through your aunt? Yes and no, because we were a family... I am the second immigrant family. My father was born here, but his parents were Belgian. My mother was born here, but my grandfather was Marseillean. And in the family, they were three sisters, Huguet, Huguet, my mother, who was a twin with Denise, who is the mother of Marie Huguet, with whom I have... The great poet.

Yes, that's it. So we were cousins very close. And then I make an incisive, but Marie wrote and I played. So Huguet, my aunt who was older, we didn't get along very well. It was a family, we didn't have many cousins. The family spirit wasn't very developed. So, I saw my aunt once a year at Christmas. So, I was very excited, but I only saw her once a year. Because you knew she was the lady on TV. Yes, absolutely. So, it's at the same time that I'm an easy audience,

at the same time, I understood very well, even young people. It wasn't too disturbing for me to say, Oh, I see her at Christmas, and when she's on TV, it's Mrs. Becksec. I said, No, no, I'm going to do that one day. When you took your first roles on TV in Antarque Humaine, for example, and you worked with people, great Quebec actors like Jean Duceppe, how did you feel? How did you experience that? Well, the first time it happened to me,

I was at the theater school, it was Jean-Louis Millette who came to do the staging of Mystère au Bouffau. And, you know, we can't take away, we can't take away from ourselves the admiration we have, even if we have to try to focus on the work we have to do. But the happiness of being together, the happiness of working with them, it's extraordinary because it's as if all of a like there's no more generation. So yes, they knew very well. By the way, I have an anecdote that made me laugh so much.

Réve Degagné, when he arrived at the École nationale, Marcel Sabourin taught. And he said, he was looking at us, Marcel, and then he knew we were just passing through the mandible. We weren't listening. So he got up and said, I'm going to do it to you once, okay? Like a fool.

It makes you think of other things. So it's a bit like that too, because we stay with our childhood memories. So yes, I started at the Theatre School to meet Jean-Louis, who was an absolutely adorable being, extraordinary. And there's always that inside these great characters, a kind of immense aura and simplicity.

And that's also the good old masters, that's it. Where did you grow up, apart from the few years you spent in Nouveau-Brunswick? After that, my father bought a house in Chateauguay, in the new developments of Chateauguay. I can't... People should see your face more often now. Yes. And as my daughter says, everything appears in the face now,

since forever. So I stayed there for ten years, I've always had a lot of On est tout et rien en même temps pendant cette période-là. Des fois, je repense à des années, puis j'étais là... Je dis donc, ben... imbu, niaiseuse... un peu... Tu sais, on est sûrs de nous. En même temps, on n'est pas sûrs de nous. Tu sais, c'est pour ça que je dis on est tout et rien.

Mais jusqu'à un certain âge, parce que j'ai sauté une année, That's why I say we're all and nothing. But until a certain age, because I jumped one year, I arrived younger in high school, I was a very studious child, very good at school, and all of a sudden, for all kinds of reasons, which are also family, personal, it was called the ninth year, and then suddenly it was called the third year. I arrived in a multivalent school,

and it wasn't a good year for me. And where I was, where I was, it wasn't... and the environment too. So I was very eager to go to a theatre school. I had also called the Conservatoire. You know, we didn't have parents who were always supervising us,

our generation. So I did that all by myself. I called the Conservatoire, the national school, and they told me, you're 16, remember us next year. And in my head, I didn't have any crazy ideas, but I was very willing.

I said, no, I'm going to spend my seven years in the two CGS, Saint-Jacques and Saint-Thérèse. You didn't have to wait a year. No. And if I'm accepted, I'll go. If I'm not accepted, I'll go back next year. So that's why I was both a very studious teenager and a lost teenager at times. You had to quit Chateauguay. Yes. In any case. What did your parents think about all this? That you know your destiny so intimately at such young age, that you were so convinced of it?

Well, in fact, often when I say my parents, I mean my father. Because maybe like many men of that generation, it was them who led the family. But also it's because it was with him that I had the most conflicts, but he was a father, he was a parent. My mother, I say it in all simplicity, she was more of a child than an adult. So we didn't necessarily have conflicts with her. I always say that somewhere she was the fifth child in the family. on avait pas nécessairement de conflit avec elle. Moi, je dis toujours, quelque part, elle était la cinquième enfant de la famille.

Alors, donc, c'est avec mon père que les trucs se passaient. Et mon père ne voulait pas que je fasse ce métier-là. Absolument pas. Il disait, c'est un beau hobby, je crois que t'as du talent, mais amuse-toi avec ça. Et je fais encore une parenthèse d'un film that I saw, Mephisto, where he meets a general during the Third Reich, and the general has a lot of admiration for him,

and Mephisto manages to get funds to make a theater, all that. And when at some point he wants to defend one of his friends who was arrested by the Gestapo, the general tells him, remember that you are only a salt bank. My father was a bit like that. He said, there are serious people, there are public amuseurs. Guess what side you want to be on. So that's why there was a lot of resistance.

But I did the same. I left when I was 16. I finished school at 19. Too young. I left when I was 16. I finished school when I was 19. I was way too young, but I was determined to do it. For several years, he told me, how much do you think you can grow? How can you think about growing your life? But for me, it wasn't a choice. That's it.

And even if I believe, fundamentally, that he accepted that I do this job, he never deeply loved what I did. Even in the face of your success? Even in the face of that. And over the years, I asked myself, he accepted it, and he came to the theater just when I was playing classical music, or almost.

He didn't go to the cinema often. It's something that I have to live with, and it's part of my career. But I deeply believe that part of her pride, her pride, which was so strong, that she had to say, I was wrong. She succeeded, she did well in choosing that job. So there was a resistance. And it was impossible for her to simply admit that she was wrong?

In certain gestures, I had the impression that he accepted what I was doing, but there was no epiphany. I imagine that your reading of Simone de Beauvoir, a teenager from Sadu, also exacerbated your feeling of injustice. Yes, but it's crazy. It's because Emmerich, my father's name is Emmerich, it's particular because it was him who made me discover these ways of seeing. We would buy books every year, every day. We had a budget to go and choose books.

It was at Champigny at the time. And my father was an intellectual, liberal, he wasn't an artist, even though he was taking pictures. That's why it was a bit ambivalent, but it was a hobby. And since I was good at school at a certain time, that's why he wanted me to go into engineering or into a liberal profession. And it was my father who told me when I was young, that I should help myself in a liberal profession, told me, you know, Sylvie, marriage for a woman is not a goal, it's a complement. It's still, for a man, you know, I was born in the 50s,

it's still quite special. It's not all men who thought that way. No. So that's why there was a lot of strength, a lot of value in my education, that man. But when I wanted to go to art, that was when there was a conflict. So he never knew how to relate completely to your decision? Well, I deeply didn't know. Except that when I gave him proof of success in his code of conduct,

there weren't many detentions. But the men of that generation also didn't take us by the arm and say, you're right, my daughter, you did well. So, I will never know. I'm happy to meet you, Sylvie, because you're Sylvie Léonard, great Quebec comedian, but also

because, as you said, a few moments ago, you're Marie-Huguet's cousin. I have her book here inissent les mains, her poem book, which appeared in Boreal. Marie-Huguet, who is one of the greatest poets in the history of Quebec literature, also important than Saint-Denis Garnot, Gaston Miron, Néligant, she was taken very very young by cancer in 1981, October 26. She was 26 years old.

What kind of relationship did you have with Marie-Huguet, with your cousin? Well, Marie and I, we were half-sisters, because our mothers were twins, but identical, completely. So we were raised together a lot, We spent a lot of time together. And she was my ally, like I was her ally because we wanted to be... We called each other artists when we were young. But since we were very young, she would write small comics,

but really tiny, small comics, small poems, small stories. And I would read them aloud. And she would say, yes, small poems, small stories. And I read them aloud, and she said, yes, that works, all that. So we were extremely close. And at the top of our eight, ten years, because we spent our summers in the El Perro, a couple of weeks with my maternal grandparents,

that was, for me, that was their dream. The summer when I went with Marie, it was extraordinary. And I remember how we were a bit megalomaniacs, and we said, I remember we put ourselves in the crowd around the court, we made ourselves believe we were drinking a glass of champagne, we were tiny. And Marie said, I would be the greatest poet. And I said, I'm going to be the greatest comedian.

You were existentialists. Yes, with our books, Simone de Beauvoir, François Sagant. We were... We were playing around. But we believed, for example, in what we were going to do. And when Marie started writing

her first poems, I told her, sign a rumor, I said, Marie, kill, you will be a great poet. He said, well, I hope, but it's because you say that, because you love me, and you've always loved me, and I'm your cousin. But that's what happened. She is a great poet. And even that, I also told her often in the intimacy or in interviews that I find interesting, in interviews in the background, as we do. It's the show, in the show that I did with Sophie Cadieux,

which was called carte blanche, on Marie with my daughter. I said, when she was writing poems, she liked it when I read them to see, to hear the sound and all that. And one of my favorites, which she wrote just before she died, she made me read it, it's called sometimes when I look at you walk. She wrote it not long before she died. I was in the hospital, and she said, I like what you're reading. I read it to her, and I said, Marie, it's wonderful.

And she looked at me and said, well, yes, you're my cousin. She didn't believe it completely that she was pregnant. She knew it. Well, you know, she saw with the success of her books, but when I said it, there was something so... so... so... so... so... so...

so... so... so... so... so... so... so... so...

so... so... so... so... so... so... so... It's one of the reasons why her poetry touches me so much, because she's a great poet, but because I also got a leg cut when I was a teenager because of cancer. Fortunately, I didn't know the same sister as Marie-Huguet. But how did you experience all of this?

Well, it's... When she left for the Madeleine, and she was getting worse. She came back and they put radios in her back because they thought it was her back. They found nothing. Then they found a tumor. All I'm saying is not in a clear order in my head, but there's denial. There's guilt. There's battle.

There's hope. There's despair. There's injustice. All of this at the same time. It's not possible. There's something that can't be done. It's completely cruel. Yes. And we saw each other during that period. I went to Paris.

I wanted to... Because I was dreaming of Paris, j'ai voulu... parce qu'à rêver de Paris, j'ai voulu offrir aussi des sous pour faire le voyage. C'est un combat intérieur qui est difficile à décrire. Une rage... puis moi je commençais à travailler aussi comme comédienne. difficult to describe. A rage. And I started working as an actress. Your career took off. Yes. A great suffering, but that you can't even measure to the one she lived with every day. It's something that has deeply marked me and that has taken on a bigger scale with time. Because at the beginning, there are situations that I avoided seeing it, or talking about it. In this denial, there is a fight.

It's like two completely contradictory things that are intertwined. And when I went to the hospital, I talked as if she was going to leave not long after. And for me, it's a big injustice. And we can't talk to each other about life after, about nothing like that. Did you read her diary? Yes. It was published in the 2000s, in which we have access, in a very intimate way,

to everything that goes through her treatments, the questions of her body, the questions of the burden she had for her doctor, the doctor who treated her. But I knew all that. You were her confidante. Well, I wasn't the only one, but I was... One of her confidantes.

Yes. And the fact that we had always shared that together, our desire-making relationship. You know, very young, us and me, when we were teenagers... You know, I get into the intimate, but we shared a lot of things, in terms of our sexuality, in terms of love. I knew Mary, I knew her, her quest, and our quest. Desire and love were very present in our lives and in our fantasies.

So she read to me the end of her diary, her diaries. You know, not the book at the beginning, all her diaries. It wasn't the destination to become a book, actually. Absolutely not. And there were mountains in a dark area. By the way, his lover, Stéphane, took some time to read everything. Yes, Stéphane Kovacs, he's the one who went through those hundreds of pages. So yes, of course I read it, but I found it more difficult to read her newspaper.

And I didn't read it straight away, even if there were big books I knew. And even if several years had passed since her death. But all her fight, you know, I often tell because Sophie also talked about it. When she got her leg amputated, not long after, because she always hated her dentition, and not long after she got her groin broken.

There was a fight, a fight for my body. But these are discussions we've had since forever. There are a few poets who have talked about the body as much as they have about the desire of the human body, as much as they have about the flesh of the body as they have lived it. Yes. By the way, often, we were very, very different, but we had very strong points in common, but very different. And Marie, when we were younger, said, I like it when you dance,

because with your body, you do things that I don't do. But I see them, I feel them. So that's why we were... we were complementary in many ways. What's left of you today? When do you think of her again? What is your current situation? When do you think of her again? All the time.

Very often, yes, I say all the time. It's not all the time, like half an hour ago. But you know, it's... And the other, like half an hour. And the other thing is that she knew she wouldn't have children. I didn't know when I would have them. She said, I hope you'll have a daughter. For the past. When I had Camille, because when I was pregnant, I didn't want to know if I was going to have a boy or a girl.

And when I had my daughter... Yeah, that's it. I was like... She's married. Sorry. So what I don't know what you're talking about, Sylvie. And I feel, when I talk about guilt, I was also in... When she started the illness, I was also in my torment, me as a young woman, with my realities, my... my love fights.

We were very young. The 20th is a year full of emotional plans. 19, 20 years. I was also in what I had to settle in my life, with my family, with my relationship,, therapy. So, guilt also comes from the fact that with all the love and adoration that I had for her, the gestures that I made to help her, I still have the feeling that I haven't been present enough for her in the last few years.

And when I feel guilty, I tell myself that I was caught with people who know me very, very, very, very closely. I was also in search of of some demons that inhabited me. Do you like to have a mustache, Sylvie? No. No, it's fine. It's fine. Do we talk about a girl? We go elsewhere.

We go elsewhere, kind of. Yes, a little. What does it change in a life? What has changed in your Yes, a little. What does it change in a life? What has it changed in your life, a girl? Well, it's not... It's crazy, but it's not that... Often when we talk about certain projects, I always say, placed in an era...

I'll give you an example. If I place inheritance in the time I did it. Another big moment in your career. It was a big moment on TV. Everyone, you know, there were two million who listened to the inheritance, because, well, we know how it works. It's a very big moment. And often people tell me,

yes, but when you talk more about one role than the other, does it bother you? I say no, because that's it. Their memory of a role is associated with a time in their life, and that's correct. So if there's someone who always talks to me about Julie Galarnot, well, they're getting older. But it's going to please me. So, yes, a boy and a huge, but I can't help but think about other roles and other, you know, other strong moments. The pleasure of a little girl is that I created Sylvie.

And it's the only project, you know, that's the big difference. project pour lequel il n'y a pas eu un auteur, un producteur, un distributeur qui font des réunions, pis qui disent, qui va jouer ça? C'est parti de notre amitié, Guy et moi. C'est ça qui fait qu'un gars et une fille existe, c'est notre amitié. Alors c'est le processus inverse, c'est parce qu'on s'est rencontrés, c'est parce qu'on a décidé de faire un petit quelque chose dans So it's the opposite process. It's because we met. It's because we decided to do something in the need for love. Yes, the talk show that animated Guy. Yes, and that he said, I'm happy, I'm ambitious, I'm confident

in the need for love, in the need for love and especially after the need for love. Yes, because after the need for love, it wasn't won. No, it wasn't won. It wasn't a big success, this talk show. No, not at all. But it gave a good feeling. Yes, that wasn't. It wasn't a big hit, that talk show. No, not at all. But it gave you a good feeling. Yes, that's right. So we called it the Conjunct Life Scene. And when it ended, but if we created that Conjunct Life Scene,

it's because I worked in the RBO last year. At the RBO-FDO. Guy and I, we fell in love with friendship, clearly, it was clear. And we started to hang out, our children hung out, we hung out. On est tombé en amour d'amitié, clairement, c'était clair clair. Puis on a commencé à se fréquenter, nos enfants se fréquentaient, on se fréquentaient. Puis tout d'un coup, il a dit, hé on voit pas ça là, tu sais, des trucs de même de couple, il est venu se passer quelque chose. Puis il dit, ça tente-tu qu'on essaie ça? On a essaie ça dans besoin d'amour, on a fait 22 scènes.

Puis après quand besoin d'amour s'est terminé, Jean Bissonnet a dit, on met ça bout à bout, on va voir qu'est-ce que ça donne. Et ça a donné à Gonnefille. And then when the need for love is over, Jean Pissonnet says, we'll put it on the table and see what it gives. And it gave a good girl. But Sylvie, she's not an author. There are still very few people, fortunately, who ask me, when Guy asked you to go to an audition, I say, no, but how many times will I have to tell him? I say, well, as I said earlier,

people don't need to know everything and they don't listen to me. But it was born from that. So Sylvie, I created it, I invented it, she speaks the same language. And it became, after, a kind of couple that works so well. Guy, me, Sam, we'll never play anything else. You know, we can't play anything else. That's what we did. What is your relationship like?

Because when we talked in 2022, in an article that I was preparing to highlight the 25 years of a gay guy, you told me that if one day Guy was in trouble, I would go and join him anywhere. Then, when I interviewed Guy a few years ago, he told me that during the filming, he had actually warned his blonde,

his mistress, Mélanie, who is the producer of the show, if I'm not mistaken, he had warned her that during the moments when you were filming, it was you, her blonde, not her. It's not all blondes who would accept that. No, but you know, we say that with a smile. Yes, I understand. But it's because this couple, we believe But it's because we believe in that couple.

And we believe in ourselves as a couple when we shoot. You know how, Madani, it was funny, an anecdote on the set. I saw Guy throwing a girl at her, I just did, you know who it was, oh, it's Mélanie. Oh, it's just her blonde. Okay, it's just her blonde, that's right. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person.

I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person, which sometimes resembles or doesn't.

I don't know, this communion between him and me, it happened spontaneously the first time we met. And it seems to be arranged with the guy at the beginning when I say that, but it's true, I made him, he's going to be in my life. Not as a lover, but he's going to be in my life. But it can be a trick of friendship. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And when I say I'm going to join them anywhere,

I don't think they need me. So it's easy to say that. No, but what I mean is that, yes, Guy is unconditional. And that doesn't mean that we like everything about each other. Sometimes, Guy does things, I'm like, why is he doing that? And he does things like the other day. I'm just telling an anecdote,

but I want to tell it. I'm not good with electronics. It's a nightmare, electronics. And I really believe that I have karma, for real. Because sometimes, I try to do something, there's a competent person next to me and it doesn't work, and she doesn't understand why it doesn't work. So, you know, it's not because I'm fussy about him.

The bad luck of hunting you. Yes. So, we often zoom in to think through the texts that are written, all that. I call him, poof, it disappears. I say, well, I start again, poof, we talk, two sentences, it disappears. So, Guy, say you know I love you. I say Hey, Guy, I didn't do anything, you know. He reminds me and it works. So, you know, well, so I'm exasperating him

on certain things, and I'm exasperating him on others. I love him. It's... I think that our astonishment also, in the face of your relationship, is in the way we look at the friendships between a man and a woman. We still...

Oh, maybe, yes. We still have trouble... on the friendship between a man and a woman, we still have trouble... I think there are people who have trouble accepting that... That it can happen. Yes, it can happen. Yes, it can happen. That it can happen without there being another aspect in that relationship. Yes, and maybe in another life...

Well, not in another life, I don't know. What I mean is that in another moment... In other circumstances. Yes, there can be an attraction, I understand that. What I mean is that at another time... In other circumstances. Yes, there can be an attraction. But that's not it. Because I have other friendships with guys. And it's friendship.

During this same interview in 2022, I had of course questioned Guy about a possible return of a Gunfey. And he had answered that every time you had mentioned this possibility, you were asking him, do you think it will be better than what we did? And Guy answered, I can't guarantee it. Why are you now involved in new seasons, new Gunfey adventures? Because the couple exists, re-exists, because our children are grown up. A Girl With A Girl was a couple.

We followed a couple who had no children, but that was it. That was the heart of the series. So after that, we finished that we had children. We adopted our little girl, and I was pregnant with our boy. But after that, it's going to be a family series. It's not the bill.

It's not the theme. It's not the stakes of that show. So I was thinking, you know, there are people who say, why don't you make a film? Why don't you make a play? No, really, really not there. I didn't believe in any of that at all. So coming back, I said, they really not there. I didn't believe in anything at all. So, coming back, I said, they're not dead.

Probably we can do something, maybe one day, because they're... But I didn't see the formula. Except when... there, it's already two years since that. Yes, it was in 2023. So Guy, I don't know, really, I don't know the first one who spoke to the other one who said, you know, a walk or a show or an interview to celebrate, you know, it was like, it was like blurry.

And then the proposal to do a special came. And I said, yes, that would be really interesting to do that to show where we are. Do you have ideas? Yes, I have ideas. Well, all that after that, Radio-Canada, we know the story. He said, no, not a special, four episodes. And it was imposed because even if our children were still living at home,

we received a couple. So that's where I think it was relevant. Is it true that the couple is found after the children have grown up? Can you offer me a little hope? Ha ha ha! I love that question! I'm asking it for a friend. Yes, that's it. Well, I love it.

I'm not with my daughter's father anymore. But it's not... It's not quite my question. No, no, but it's... Child by child, I think. Couples who separate. But we are very good parents for our daughter, in the sense that we are very good friends and all that.

But we can't be the same. It's impossible. Impossible. There is a scene in the new season of A Little Girl that I find very interesting. I want to put people in context. Guy learns that he is asked, he is assigned to become a jury in a trial, and he is absolutely affected by this news, while Sylvie is completely wrapped up. It's his dream to become a jury. And of course, Guy can't reveal the details of the trial.

Sylvie tries to draw details from it, she wants to know the nature of the crime that was involved in that trial. And then, at the dinner table, the evening came, she enumerates all the types of possible crimes. And then it's really like seeing yourself play that, it's like seeing a great guitarist play a solo guitar. You know, all the different intentions that come together.

Which part of this scene corresponds to the instinct? And which part corresponds to the technique, to the experience of the actress? That's a very good question. I think the actress's technique is the years of work, the years of work that you go through. You know, like someone said, how do you manage to play that? I said, well, it's just, well, that's more than that.

But it's just been 36 years that I've been saying, now we've gone a little bit further. But that's what makes us better by better, I think. There's that. And Sylvie, I know her. I invented her. I know her. So there her. I know her. So there's a part of instinct too.

And in the game, there's always a part of instinct. And it's just the balance between the two. Because the technique, it's like it's in the background. The technique is integrated to play. It's part of, you know, you said guitarist, it's part of our instrument, the technique. It's the scales. Yes, yes. What is the engine is really instinct and abandonment.

Am I wrong or do you claim that you affirm it a little more firmly that Sylvie is your creation? That before? Yes. No, I think we hear it more. Ah yes. It's the others who have changed. I think so. It was hard to hear.

But at the same time, it's that in the credits, you have the title of muse, which can be a bit confusing, let's say. Yes, but it was a term that Guy wanted, which was broad at the beginning, saying, this series, and he said it, would never have existed if I hadn't met you. We created this.

Yes, he's the script editor, the captain, he writes the most text, he's the director, he's the one in the foreground. It's okay because these are his functions and he does them very well. But this series wouldn't have existed if we hadn't met. Guy didn't sit down and said, Oh, I'm going to write a show called A Girl With Love. As I say, the history is that we started to date, we found it funny, etc.

And it gave... So if we hadn't met on airbio, after that we hadn't decided to make these little scenes in need of love, A Girlfile would never be born. By the way, by the way, I found the title of a gunfile. So that's why the word muse implied that, this reality. I think the word muse has something passive, or it can have something passive. Yes, but I'm in height too.

It looks like we don't see it. But what does our society say about what you have repeated several times, that you were not just a passive muse and that we barely start hearing it? Yet, I often say it in interviews, I have often spoken about it. It still says a lot that in our society, there are two steps, two measures, and it's not... We still have difficulty in getting out of a... even if we evolve, of a society that is deeply patriarchal. If it was a series called A Guy, A Guy,

the two guys are ahead. It's still difficult to give... You know, I'll give you just an example. At one point, at the beginning of the series, we needed a hairdresser because it was difficult to organize ourselves with our hair. And we know that Guy's hair is a nightmare. So the producers said, we don't have the budget. I'm talking about the beginning, we don't have the budget. The more I claimed to have aiffeur, plus on disait, bon là, tiens, on a pas le budget. Guy est arrivé une journée

pis il a dit, hey, ça prend un coiffeur. Trois heures. Oui. Alors, un gars connaît son dossier, une fille talonne. T'sais, et c'est encore, j'ose espérer, que ça évolue, pis des fois on avance, pis des fois on recule un peu, mais juste salaire égal, travail work, it's not done. Well, it's not done in several areas. And in ours, I'm not sure.

I'd like to be sure. I'm not sure. But several years ago, it was frankly unequal. So, we're starting from there. When I prepare this type of interview, I try to get as many sources as possible and go and read several interviews that my guests have given in the past. And it's maybe me who's doing these researches wrong, it's maybe me who has problems with technology like you, Sophie, but I found quite a few long interviews with you.

It seems to me that you were pretty discreet, especially given the great, great, great success that a good girl has gained in the 90s. Am I wrong? Well, it's possible. It's because I don't have a comparison. I can't say I'm comparing to such a person. But there are some who would have taken advantage of a great success like that to get a good view of the greatest number of tribunes possible.

And it's not better or worse than that. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. a great success like this one to get the most number of stands possible?

And it's not better or less, but I don't like that. I don't run after, not only I don't run after, but I really need a distance. My job is what I do by creating characters in productions, meeting directors, playing in theaters, being in... you know, that's my job. What's around... I call it the sun. What's around are satellites, interviews, promotions. Yes, it's okay, it takes some time, but I don't need that. On the contrary, I need to be a little bit in retreat

because I feel like I'm overdoing it. You know, I'm not on social media. Not on any of them. I don't miss it. There are people who tell me, ah, you could find it, or, you know... I'm not saying that social media is all bad, even if I find that there are a lot of people on the screens,

and that's another thing, and then we can talk about it. It's a real problem. It's a real problem, we're getting along. It's not just me who says it. But I understand that there is good in the networks because you want to spread, that there is a manifestation somewhere, you know, good news, good stuff like that. But I find that there are a lot of perverse effects, a lot of invasion, there is no line between the intimate and the public, and I need a lot of intimacy.

So, is it for that or is it because people don't want to interview me? I don't know. It surprises me. But now I'm here, you know, so there is... She's here for real, I confirm. And so I say yes. But I still did... Ah, another thing I would add is that I like to do interviews when it's a conversation.

Punch interviews where it's quick or anecdotal only. What do you do on a trip? That was my next question. We're going to skip it. But, you know, things like potting, I avoid all that, it doesn't really tell me anything. But interviews, like I did, I entered with Marie-Claude Lavallee a long time ago.

She was a great interviewer, yes. She was still a great interviewer. With Marie-France Basaut, you know, I can name others, but interviews where there's a deep conversation, where we can go further, where it interests me. But you know, I'm not going to run, even if there are some who say we need that, but I'm not going to run. I'm going to do it because sometimes it's very pleasant, it's true, but I'm not too keen to do cover pages or you know... It's my personality.

How does your hope of feminist women today face our society, where we witness the resurgence of certain ideas that we thought were dead for good for a long time? When I think about the path we've been on, there's a lot of hope that it will continue, because I think we're making a lot of progress. But at the same time, as you say, there's all this movement that's growing and taking more and more space, that comes as a nuisance to this balance or to this evolution in women. And what worries me the most is that there are women who participate.

And that touches me. That troubles me a lot. Because these men, they go out with women. They have companions. And these companions are in doses. I remember when you had the right to vote, when we had the right to vote, there was a whole movement of women who were against

women having the right to vote. It's absurd, but that's it. So it troubles bothers me. And how does your self-anxiety support that? Oh, it comes, it goes. You know, I find that we have a discourse of initiation. Those who are already touched, concerned, who make small gestures,

we talk among ourselves. But there is like a whole pan of society that completely denies or contributes even more to... I look at the... I don't want to name a sort of vehicle, but you know, the big ones, the big ones that we see. We have a few in mind. Yes, that's it.

I'm told that we're selling more and more. I have a very small car. This small car is no longer made. So, these people who buy these cars, they deny it, they don't exist, they don't care. So if we, in our small gang, to initiate, to be proactive,

and we try to do everything we can, and we pass it, but we don't reach that entity, that's what creates anxiety, because I think that if everyone had the same conscience, of course, it's a big machine to change.

And even I, there are things that have to be changed. You know, I ask myself the question when I want to go on a trip, I ask myself the question, how long will it take if you go on a trip? Not three or four times a year? Oh, but I want to go anyway, but not to stop visiting the planet, you know, if there are so many cultures.

Yeah, but you know, balance. I ask myself questions about many gestures I make. And I buy a piece of furniture, I see it arrive in a cardboard box, I go, Oh my God, what did I buy? You know, I'm sick. Yeah, but I need a chair. I need it. So, you know, I ask myself all these questions, but that's a language to start with. Because I'm talking to the same people who think, like me,

but how to reach those who don't have that? Who get furniture without having a single ounce of liability. Who buy cars that cost a lot of oil, that don't compost. It's nasty, but I don't understand people who don't compost. And they say, yeah, but it smells bad. But in your freezer, I don't know. It's small gestures.

So, for me, eco-anxiety comes a lot from the fact that there is a part of society that we can't bring with us. It's hard not to sink into cynicism and despair in the face of this part of society. Well, cynicism, yes. Because I see, I do, you know, an entrepreneur who has this kind of truck, I understand, I understand.

But the one who parks, you know, I feel bad. You know, sometimes'm not doing well. Sometimes I say, well, let's see, what does he do in life to have that? It's just moving around. Yeah, but you know, it protects me. What? What is that? It protects you, but it doesn't protect the others.

No, really not. What do you dream of, Sylvie, for your career in the next few years? You know, roles that I've never played before. And often I say that the role I'm going to play is the one I wanted, without knowing it. When Denis Marleau called me to play Jackie at Espace Go, 12 years ago. It was in 2011?

Yes, 2010, 2011, all that. You won an association of critics prize for that role. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. I was so happy. A gelinet, it wasn't easy. It's a mountain to climb, huge.

The Nobel Prize in Literature for gelinets. And a writing so particular, 27 pages without any de-escalation, without punctuation. You're the one who writes it, you're the director. It was an extraordinary adventure. And when I got it, I said, yes, that's it. When they called me to play, when Eric Bruno, it wasn't Eric who called me, but when he told me,

I wrote it thinking about you, the role of Françoise in Double Fold, the turn, I wrote it thinking about you, I wrote it thinking about you, I wrote it thinking about you, When Eric Bruno, not Eric who called me, but when he told me, I wrote it thinking about you, the role of Françoise in Double Fault, I had never played that before. And I thought, ah, that's what I want to play.

So I always tell myself that the next role will be the one I want. Why is that what you wanted to play? Because it's true that it's a particular role of a very anxious and very controlling mother with her son. Controlling, but who develops the disease in very young ages. So, going into those areas of this fragility, of this vulnerability, and who is realistic. You know, I'm at an age where it can happen. So, going into that area, thinking about my daughter. Besides, I rarely talk about my private life, but a little parenthesis,

my daughter is not able to look at them. Yet she looks at everything I do, with happiness, all that. Then she says, this role, Mom, is too close to something that could... She says, I'm not ready to watch it yet. And I understand that because the people watching it are very, very troubled. So me, to be put in a vulnerable position like that to play this role, I said, it's extraordinary. And I love to create characters.

Once again, your gaze is illuminating. Yes. But there is no other choice way to go through this vulnerability when you want it to be transparent on the screen? Yes. And it's not us. We agree. We don't become psychotic. But there's an abandonment in relation to what this character asks.

To go and look for himself. He has to go. Because otherwise, he doesn't touch the truth. And even in the comedy, you have to touch the truth. That's what makes it work. It means that when you played in The Love That Kills, by Jean-Edbert Rant, in Love with a Grand, you didn't have a choice but to go there too,

in that area that is very, very... that is one of the darkest. Oh, it's painful. There's a scene where... and Juscelin was extraordinary. Juscelin Tremblay, what a great comedian. Yes.

He runs after me, there's a shot, it's not a sequence shot, but there's still a long walk, he runs after me in the house to hit me. And I scream, and I really lost my voice. You know, that's where, as I say, we're not psychotic, but you have to touch something in yourself.

And I really lost my voice. And then he hits me, but the camera, we get out of the picture. So he doesn't hit me for real, but we play that. And when it was cut, I have a little white, even in my memory, a little white, and Jeanette, my beautiful Jeanette, who takes me, I find myself in her arms, and I lose my breath, and I say,

how can they do that? So, I know I'm Sylvie and I'm not Diane, but it's about being hit, being raped. You have to feel something in yourself that corresponds to what Diane can live. How did you welcome your daughter's desire to become an actress, also given what you had experienced with your father? You're passionate, go where you're passionate. And no matter what you're passionate about, if you don't listen to what you're deeply into,

you'll regret it. I've always said to myself, I'm going to go. I might have to do something else to make a living. I might have to quit this job. But no one will stop me from going where I want to go. It's the same for Camille. I have the impression that for you, it's okay. You won't want to go. It's the same for Camille.

I have the impression that for you, it's going well. You won't need to quit this job. Not for the moment. Sylvie, this walk is entitled Just Between You and Me. Is there one last thing you'd like to tell me that would stay just between you and me? Yeah, maybe, but I don't think so. that would remain just between you and me? Yeah, maybe, but I don't think so. I have a suggestion for you.

Would you read us a poem by Marie-Huillier? Because it's too difficult? No. Are you sure? Which one? I read that it was your favorite, or at least one of your favorites, this one. Camille reads it much better than I do now. your favorite or at least one of your favorites, this one. Camille reads it much better than I do now.

There are, however, apples and oranges. These wings, holding in one hand the entire fecundity of the Earth, the beautiful vigor of the fruits. I do not know all the fruits by heart, nor the well-being of the fruits on a white sheet. Je ne connais pas tous les fruits par coeur ni la chaleur bienfaisante des fruits sur un drap blanc. Mais des hôpitaux n'en finissent plus, des usines n'en finissent plus, des files d'attente dans le gel n'en finissent plus, des plages tournées en marécage n'en finissent plus. J'en ai connu qui souffrait à perdre la haine, n'en finissent plus de mourir J'en ai connu qui souffrait à perdre la haine, n'en finisse plus de mourir, en écoutant la voix d'un violon ou celle d'un corbeau,

ou celle des érables en avril. N'en finisse plus d'atteindre des rivières en eaux qui défilent charriant des banquises de lumière, des lambeaux de saison, ils ont tant de rêves. Mais les barrières, les antichchambers, are no longer there. Torture, cancer, the men who fight in mines, the people who are shot at by the gun, in the support of fury, are no longer there, dreaming in orange.

Women are no longer there sewing men, and men are no longer there drinking. de rêver couleur d'orange. Des femmes n'en finissent plus de coudre des hommes et des hommes de se verser à boire. Pourtant, malgré les rides multipliées du monde, malgré les exils multipliés, les blessures répétées dans l'aveuglement des pierres, je piège encore le son des vagues, la paix the oranges. Slowly, these souls claim the pain of the ground, of its construction, and all the dynamic summer comes to awaken me, comes slowly and lostly to bind me to its fruits.

Thank you very much, Sylvie. It's absolutely wonderful. Thank you for this gift. You just embraced the book, the photo of Marie-Huguet. Thank you to Marie-Huguet, and thank you to you for your great, great generosity. Thank you.