In March of this year, Xavier Dolan was still a teenager, but in May, he was a 20-year-old with one of the most awarded Cannes Film Festival debuts ever. Dolan wrote, acted in, and directed I Killed My Mother (screening at the AFI Fest today), the story of a temperamental gay teen (Dolan) thrashing to get out from under the thumb of his tacky mom (Anne Dorval). The film virtually swept the Directors Fortnight program at Cannes, winning three of the biggest awards, yet Dolan's attempts to mount his next directorial project (the transsexual love story Laurence Anyways) have been thwarted, so the Quebec native has returned to acting for the time being.
Still, it's hard to believe we won't be seeing more of Dolan soon, as he's a handsome triple threat who boasts the ambition of a director, the playful narcissism of an actor, and the self-effacement (bordering on self-flagellation) of a writer. In a talk about his whirlwind year, Dolan discussed the perils of making an independent film in Canada, his love for Kate Winslet, and his unlikely standing in the Twilight franchise as a card-carrying member of Team Jacob.
You were supposed to make your next film as a director this fall. What happened?
Laurence Anyways was too expensive to shoot, and it requires a greater budget. It's put on hold, it's on hiatus right now, and we've focused on another project that is more independent and easier to gather money from. Since Laurence was put on hold, I decided to act - it's my first passion, after all. It was my first job ever, my first profession, and before wanting to write and direct, I was an actor.
I would have thought that after I Killed My Mother's success, fundraising for your next movie might be a little easier.
No, absolutely not. We are in Quebec and even though some doors are being opened for financing, for a Quebec movie, it's still very hard to find financing. We don't really have private investors in Quebec -- they're so discreet and rare and interested in very commercial things, not artsy movies. We just turned to public financing, which is a very obsolete structure that doesn't focus on art, but rather on profit -- and here, profit in film is not really feasible. We have a very small market compared to American movies and foreign movies, so it's hard to make money here. Because of this, it's only commercial films and blockbusters that catch the eye of public entities. Once in a while, we have films that are more indie and underground, but it's so rare. It's so complicated and bureaucratic.
Have you thought about looking for financing from another country? You were so well-received in France, after all, and you'd prefer to work in that language, I'm sure.
You know, financing with Laurence will be a co-production with France -- it's been decided, but it still requires some time. In fact, to make things more easy since our lead actor is French, we decided to approach France to look for financial partners over there. For the movie I'm shooting right now, we don't have public money and we don't have coproductions. It's only private money, and money that I reinvested in the film from the few profits I had made on I Killed My Mother.
And you had already invested your own money into that movie.
Yes, all my money.
It sounds like there are a lot of frustrating elements to the Canadian film scene, but at the same time, your film was picked as the Canadian submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. Were you privy to any of that, or did it come as a surprise?
Total surprise. You know, I've been very critical towards the movie. It feels like it was made ten years ago. If I were to do it again, it would probably be done very differently. I hate a lot of things in it, and I'm always surprised that people...I mean, I love a lot of things about it, too, and I'm proud of the discoveries and experiments, but basically it's a film that feels like it's been a decade since I made it. For me, art is a "roll on" thing: I end something, and I must do something again. There is no break. There is no oxygen needed. I just need to roll on nonstop. I don't want to sound dramatic, but I feel it has something to do with my survival. Some people have different things that make them happy and allow them to breathe, and the only thing I really need is shooting film.
So are you hoping to be a workaholic director like Steven Soderbergh?
I know someday it won't be like that, and it's not that I want to make a film every year. I'm not saying, "It's going to be like this for the next 35 years, and I'm going to make 35 films! That's not the way I see it. It's like, if I have an idea, I want to do it now. Creation is something that evaporates pretty quickly.
Would you direct something you didn't write?
I don't know -- it depends on the project. I have a problem with taking a screenplay and being unfaithful to someone's original invention. There is a word for it...hold on, let me check it in my virtual dictionary.
You can tell me it in French if you want.
I have it here! OK. I have a problem with misrepresenting...is that it? Disguising someone's vision, their writing, their universe. You have a feeling you are corrupting someone's world, and it is the feeling I would have toward someone who would take one of my screenplays and try to put it up on the big screen. I would probably have the feeling that it's not my writing anymore, not my nature. Sometimes it's to the benefit of the film to have this process of metamorphosis through one's eyes, but I feel like I could not like this exercise of directing someone else's words. I believe in control over the whole process. I want to be there for every step. When on I Killed My Mother, if something bad happened, I could take every fault and blame, but I can't do that if it's not my screenplay. OK, I'm going to stop talking about this because I've been talking for, like, thirty-five minutes and you probably hate me.
No, I think it's interesting. I mean, when you're simply acting, isn't that a process of taking someone's words and filtering them through your own perspective?
Acting is totally different to me. No one will take away from me my acting, they will have to deal with it. Maybe they will edit it badly...I mean, they can do whatever they want with it, but they can't misrepresent it, because it's me. My acting can't be denatured because it's my acting. It's a blessing to be an actor because it's a profession of very short intensity. You get on the set for short periods and work hard for 25, 35, 55 days, who knows, and then you leave and you've done what you had to do. People are not going to talk about the editing or the directing of the movie, they're gonna be like, "Oh my God, Kate Winslet was so good!" And you know, Kate Winslet is a great actress. I love her. When I got to Hollywood, I'm gonna...well, she lives in New York. Chelsea. I know way too much about Kate Winslet, don't I?
[Laughing] Maybe.
But what's great about acting is that when it's done, it's done. When you're a director, you stay for one year, two years, and you have to promote [the film] and it's an industrial machine and it's exhausting. There's so many strings attached, so many things you need to fulfill the obligations of the profession. There are exhausting things about being an actor, too, but of all those jobs, the one that is my passion is acting. Of course, sometimes I'm bad, but you won't see that onscreen. [Laughs] There are quite a few scenes in I Killed My Mother where I'm very bad, but you can edit and choose scenes. When I direct, I'm a wreck. I'm like, what am I going to do, how am I going to fit these shots together? Finally, the answers will come, but when you're an actor, you don't have this very heavy and intense production, this stress like hell. Ugh. [Laughs] I'm sorry!
How do you remove yourself from the vanities inherent in being a actor when you're in the editing room with your editor?
There's a physical barrier to establish, there's a line to draw where you determine what is a good take regardless of whether you have a double chin or not. Sometimes I look at [scenes] and I'm like, "She's great and she's beautiful. He's great, and he's even more beautiful. I'm OK, and I look like shit." You have to see beyond those ego questions in editing. I can do it - I did it on I Killed My Mother -- and I'm gonna do it again. Being there and watching the movie for the umpteenth time, it taught me what to do and what to avoid. There are things I don't want to do, and things I want to repeat.
What would you repeat?
As a director, I thought some of the framings in I Killed My Mother were pretty interesting, and something of which I'm proud. I want to do this again. The introspective fantasy moments where you get to penetrate these people's minds, I love those cuts from one world to another, from dream to reality. It's something that doesn't require words, and it's always interesting to go so deep into one's mind. It's something I want to do on my next film -- that I'm going to do, actually.
And what were the difficult things you ran into as a first-time filmmaker?
When I went into the editing room, I realized that I had not directed a movie that considered the process of editing. Some scenes were impossible to edit. Some angles were bad. Some things didn't cut well. No movement in the image makes the editing very, very hard. Now, when I'm shooting, I'm trying to have this approach where I'm really thinking about how I'm going to edit this. "Will it cut well? Will it not shock anyone's eye?"
Finally, Xavier, I heard that you dubbed the voice of Stan in a French-Canadian version of South Park.
[Laughs] This channel here in Quebec wanted to appeal to people with this whole-new version of South Park. This version is dubbed from France with this slang, this argot that is very vulgar, and we actually like it very much. Then, though, this channel had the idea that instead of doing it with slang in France, we'd do it with slang from Quebec with language from our people and our nation. Sadly, it's been cancelled and it's not airing anymore. You know, though, I'm dubbing other things. I'm Jacob in Twilight.
You are? It's such a huge deal in America. Is there that sort of fervor in Canada?
Yeah, it's huge here. The actor's name is...Taylor Lautner?
Yes. He's become a huge underage heartthrob here in the past year.
Really. [A very long, off-the-record conversation ensues about Lautner and the Twilight franchise. To protect Dolan's job security in the dubbing profession, you'll simply have to use your imagination.] ♦