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Roy Dupuis

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Roy Dupuis (born April 21,1963) is a celebrated French-Canadian (Québécois) actor. Internationally, he is best-known so far for his role as Michael Samuelle in the television series La Femme Nikita (or Nikita) filmed in Toronto beginning in 1996 and first broadcast in the U.S., Canada, and other countries from 1997 to 2001 (still re-run throughout the world).

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, was 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.

While becoming an accomplished actor in Québec and well-known in some of the rest of Canada, Roy Dupuis performed in many theatre productions, movies, and television series. Among the stage roles that he has performed so far are: Luc in Michel-Marc Bouchard's Les muses orphelines (The Orphan Muses), directed by André Brassard in 1985; Roméo in a Québécois adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Roméo et Juliette), directed by Guillermo de Andrea in 1989; and Jay in Jean-Marc Dalpé's Le Chien (The Dog), Adrien in Jeanne-Mance Delisle's Un Oiseau vivant dans la gueule (A Live Bird in Its Jaws), and Lee in a Québécois version of Sam Shepard's True West, all three productions directed by Brigitte Haentjens, in 1988, 1990, and 1994, respectively. Dupuis was introduced to the American public via U.S. television as Oliva Dionne in Million Dollar Babies (1994), followed by more large-screen appearances in films such as Bleeders (1995) and Screamers (1997). In 1997 he began appearing as Michael Samuelle in the television series La Femme Nikita, which is also known as Nikita and was based on the 1990 film by French director Luc Besson. Among his "tour-de-force" film performances are Yves in Being at Home with Claude (1991), his first major screen role, and Kevin Barlow in Manners of Dying (2004), one of his most recent ones.

Roy Dupuis lives southeast of Montréal, on 50 acres (200,000 m²) of land, in an 1840s farmhouse, which he bought several years ago and has restored and renovated. Sports in which he has participated include hockey, sky-diving, and golf. His hobbies include astronomy and physics (his interests in high school). He learned to play the cello as a boy and, at times, still plays, sometimes in dramatic roles. For the film Jack Paradise, he learned very precise jazz piano hand movements accompanying the actual piano playing (performed on the movie sound track by pianist James Gelfand, the composer of the original music). For the past few years, between film projects, he has been occupied with learning to sail; he owns a couple of sailboats, and he is custom-outfitting the larger aluminum-keeled vessel in preparation for extended ocean voyages.

Dupuis' most recently-completed full-length feature film (release date: 25 Nov. 2005) is "Maurice Richard," directed by Charles Binamé (Séraphin: Un homme et son péché), in which he stars as French-Canadian hockey icon Maurice "Rocket" Richard, who played for the Montréal Canadiens from 1942 to 1960 and whom he portrayed previously on Canadian television in 1997 and 1999. His own experience playing hockey and his ability to perform on the ice on authentic period hockey skates are especially useful for this film, in which several professional hockey players are also cast in supporting roles.

Awards

Roy Dupuis has won various awards, including:

Stage Performances

Television Work (TV-ography)

Filmography

Civic and Philanthropic Activities

For well over a decade, Roy Dupuis has actively supported Fondation Mira/the Mira Foundation, a non-profit organization which provides and trains guide dogs and service dogs for the visually impaired and otherwise disabled. (For background and updated information, one may visit "About Mira: Stars At Mira" and related projects links on its web site.)

Roy Dupuis is also co-founder and vice president of Fondation Rivières/the Rivers Foundation, an organization whose mission is to protect the wild rivers of Québec and their natural and cultural habitats from small hydro-electric power dam projects and other environmental and economic threats and to encourage the development of alternative energy sources through education (For background and updated information, one may visit its web site.)

(Some information provided in this article comes from numerous newspaper and magazine articles and other material posted on these sites [as listed alphabetically]. Credits are provided there.)

  • For some additional biographical information, please see Sarah Hampson, "A Home Boy, Happy That Way," Globe and Mail 31 Aug. 2002 (Metro ed.): R3 (and other articles posted on the sites listed above). According to Hampson, Roy Dupuis was born in New Liskeard, which is now part of Temiskaming Shores, Ontario. Hampson's biographical account derives from her 2002 interview with Dupuis. For related biographical information, please consult "The Actor's Method", a popular interview with Roy Dupuis, conducted by Gina Pia Cooper and published in Fashion Finds in 1999. [These articles have been cross-checked with other published print interviews and articles and with multiple additional authoritative sources. To attain the level of factual accuracy and neutrality that Wikipedia strives to provide its readers, such accounts have been updated and revised in the body of this article.]
  • For a study of Roy Dupuis' characters, please see Danièle St-Denis, Dans les peaux de Roy Dupuis (Outremont, Qc: Les Éditions internationales Alain Stanké, 2004). [Though her original French version has been removed since this book's publication, English, Spanish, and Italian translations of earlier versions of St-Denis' chapters, including annotated external links and other pertinent information about Roy Dupuis's career as an actor, are still accessible at Les Personnages de Roy Dupuis (Roy Dupuis' Characters), her unofficial fan website listed in the preceding section.]

NOTE WELL: This article has been composed and edited by various contributors at various times. Some details presented here are still in the process of fact-checking and other verification by contributing editors, including some experienced researchers and scholars.

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