For a long time, Martin Matte replied to anyone who asked him if his humor allowed him to untangle intimate knots that this was not the case, that all this fun should not be taken for anything other than fun. “Sometimes, people would say to me: ‘Oh, what you say about your father is like therapy.’ And I answered no. But yes, it was one. »
Episode 1: Martin Matte
While he has just finished writing a new fiction series, inspired by the life of his father, Martin Matte looks back on his beginnings in humor and the difficult reception given to his talk show. He also talks about the fog he went through in the years following his brother’s accident.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, LA PRESSE
Comedian Martin Matte with the host of Just between you and me Dominic Tardif
Three quotes from our interview
About the pain he experienced after his brother’s accident
“I drowned her in alcohol. It’s not even a joke. I’m a party guy. I thought I was celebrating to have fun and that was it. […] I celebrated loud, loud, loud. And then I worked hard, hard, hard. I think that was my way of getting through that pain. […] I was in the fog for two years. I returned to CEGEP, I was all mixed up. I was doing well, I had my friends, but there was a fog all the time. »
About his first meeting with Yvon Deschamps, at a Just for Laughs gala
“Since Yvon opened the gala and I presented the first number, I was behind the curtain with him, side by side. And I didn’t know at the time if he was making jokes, but he was like, “Why am I doing this, I’m not well, I’m stressed.” I understood later that he wasn’t doing that to make me laugh, but because he was super nervous. »
About his brother’s disability
“It certainly made me a better person, much more sensitive to difference. I have a sort of favorable prejudice, of love, in relation to someone who experiences something different. I see a parent with a child in a wheelchair and I love him more than the other people on the street. »
