Interview with Anne-Élisabeth Bossé

Anne-Élisabeth Bossé is preparing to deliver a “titanic score” at Duceppe. The star ofIndefensible and of Our sisters-in-law is happy to be reunited with her theater family. Portrait of an actress in search of her true nature.

Published at 1:12 a.m.

Updated at 6:00 a.m.

The Duceppe Creation Centre is nestled in the third basement of Place des Arts. Before entering the room, you pass through a dimly lit lounge, furnished with “vintage” tables and sofas and old posters of the company’s shows. This is where the director gives his “notes” to the performers, after rehearsals, a few days before the start of the school year at Duceppe.

Anne-Élisabeth Bossé listens to the commentary, observing the faces of Jean Duceppe, Michel Dumont, Denise Pelletier, Viola Léger and… Maude Guérin. “Maude appears on a few posters. I feel privileged to work with this great actress!” she says, in an interview over a pint at the La Cage restaurant, after the first performance of the play.

PHOTO DANNY TAILLON, PROVIDED BY DUCEPPE

Anne-Élisabeth Bossé and Maude Guérin in rehearsal at the Duceppe Creation Center

Finding your “theater gang” again

For her return to the theater after a six-year absence, Anne-Élisabeth Bossé is not doing things by halves. She plays the lead role in the French version of People, Places and Things, a play by Duncan Macmillan, created at the National Theatre in London in 2015. She plays a drug-addicted actress in full decline. On stage from start to finish, Bossé is surrounded by Maude Guérin (who plays her therapist and her mother), Fabien Piché, Charles Roberge and seven other performers.

The production (which will also be presented at the Trident in January 2025) will occupy nearly six months of the star’s schedule Our sisters-in-law. “It feels good to be back with my theater gang, to go back to my roots,” says the actress, who graduated from the Conservatoire d’art dramatique in 2007. While rehearsing with director Olivier Arteau this summer, she realized that “the plant needed water.”

PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, LA PRESS

Anne-Élisabeth Bossé talks with the director Olivier Arteau, before a continuation of the play.

Last June, the actress finished filming Liarthe next feature film by Émile Gaudreault, derived from his film Liar. “Anne-Élisabeth is a virtuoso who can play drama as well as comedy. That’s what she had to do in Liar, and she did it brilliantly! She was not just an interpreter on set, she was also a valuable collaborator at every level,” says the filmmaker. The theatrical release of Liar is scheduled for summer 2025.

At the Conservatory, Jean-Simon Traversy was in the same cohort as Anne-Élisabeth Bossé. As were Ève Landry, François Arnaud and Cynthia Wu-Maheux. “From the first year, Anne-Éli [comme on l’appelle] stood out,” recalls Duceppe’s co-artistic director. “With her energy, her repartee, her leadership. It’s as if she already knew herself, as an actress, when she arrived at the school. In class, she was whole, present… Ardent!”

Hard drugs

The room People, places, thingswhich opens on September 12, promises to be a beautiful and long adventure for the woman who turned 40 in July. For this demanding role, she changed her hair.

I wanted a bit of a punk look, peroxided hair with good regrowth.

Anne-Elisabeth Bossé

PHOTO DANNY TAILLON, PROVIDED BY DUCEPPE

Actress Anne-Élisabeth Bossé in rehearsal

The text, translated by David Laurin, multiplies the parallels between theater and therapy, between art and addiction. The author approaches the difficult path to sobriety. Without moralizing or preaching. With authenticity. Emma, a polydrug-addicted actress, needs help. Because her life went off the rails when she lost the thread in the middle of a show.

Since no one wants to hire her, the actress has to undergo treatment in a medical center. However, for Emma, the drunkenness of the night remains a way to forget her demons, her unhappiness. “It’s not easy to be honest, when you lie to earn a living,” she says ironically at the beginning of the play.

PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, LA PRESS

Anne-Élisabeth Bossé now has a “slightly punk” look for her new role in the theater.

For Anne-Élisabeth Bossé, acting is also a hard drug. She tries her hand at everything: theater, TV, cinema, improv, humor. “I’ve always been versatile. But I’ve spread myself too thin in recent years,” she believes. With my one-woman show JealousI put my nervous system to the test.”

Feeling of failure

After months of testing in 2021, Bossé cancelled the media premiere in Montreal, then the tour of the show. But why did she get into this strange mess? “I still can’t explain it. I like comedy. I had a boyfriend who was a comedian [Guillaume Pineault]. We liked to go see shows at the Bordel Comédie Club. Then they came to get me, giving me carte blanche…

And I realized that I didn’t like being alone on stage, always speaking in the first person, without characters.

Anne-Elisabeth Bossé

“The producers asked me to do a number with my character from Country above. But that’s not me. I read poetry at home in the evening; I studied at the Conservatoire for three years. I’m an extremely sensitive creature!

Since the abrupt end of Jealousshe feels like she has abandoned her family… She is reminded that once, under pressure, Michel Courtemanche broke down on stage one night at a premiere at the Just for Laughs festival. Knowing your limits is a strength, right?

“That’s nice of you to tell me. I finished the Conservatoire at 23. My job has always taken first place in my life. People tell me that I work too much, that I’m going to burn myself out. On the contrary, acting does me so much good! My favorite line from Emma is “I am a scream looking for a mouth.” My mouth is acting. I can’t find a better place than the stage to express myself. To get out this anxiety that has been inhabiting me since childhood…”

Life is a fiction

Asked what she prefers: fiction or reality? “Fiction, definitely! The fictional life is more interesting. It’s life to the power of a thousand! All your senses are on alert. It’s full of dopamine! There’s a part of me that sees life as a big buffet and wants to take a little bite of everything,” she says, taking a last sip of beer.

It’s getting late. She has to go back to her loft (not finished renovating), where she moved after her separation. And get back to her “not very orderly” single life.

I’m 40 years old, but I feel like I’m in a second adolescence. Where I come from [Sorel-Tracy]there was only one model for women. People without children, not married, it was weird. They had an aura of failure around them.

Anne-Elisabeth Bossé

“For a long time, I believed that my life would begin after I had filled in all these boxes: marriage, children, house, swimming pool, etc. I tried to fill them in as a couple, for seven years. But I felt like I was sacrificing myself to have an orderly life. No one imposed anything on me. I was a prisoner of my own prejudices. At one point, I exploded!”