Under influences | Sonia Cordeau, inspired

Artists are also the sum of the works that shaped them. The actress and author Sonia Cordeau, starring in the play Whitehorseat Duceppe, until December 15, and creator of the series Inhale exhale (on Crave and Noovo), talks about those that left their mark on her to our columnist Marc Cassivi, as part of our Under Influences section.

Marc Cassivi: Is there a work that particularly struck you as a child?

Sonia Cordeau: I didn’t listen to a lot of stuff aimed at children when I was young! I remember seeing the TV theater Albertine in five steps [à -, en 2000, dans une réalisation d’André Melançon]. Guylaine Tremblay played Madeleine, there was Élise Guilbault, Macha Limonchik. I recorded it and transcribed the text in a notebook. My mother ended up buying me the book!

I wanted to learn the lines by heart. I loved seeing this rage from women. It spoke to me, even though I was young. There were such well-written lines, funny, but also dramatic. Michel Tremblay really left an impression on me.

It appeared in Appendiceswhen you were doing “Les rois de la Main” with Anne-Élisabeth (Bossé).

It’s 100% a tribute to Tremblay. It comes from there. I’ve been reading it for so long and I love it, I love this poetry and this music.

See Albertine in five steps on TV made you want to go to the theater?

I didn’t see much of it when I was young. I didn’t really have access to it in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. I went to a public school and we didn’t do these kinds of outings. I went to the theater for the first time when I was 17. I watched a lot of TV. Under a changing sky went back recently and saw it all again. TV novels and series like Scoop had a big impact on me when I was little. My parents saw that I really liked it, so I had the privilege of watching them.

Even though there were sex scenes in Scoop !

(Laughs) It inspired a lot of discussion! My father was very involved in fiction. I understood that it could create this kind of commitment.

I started by dancing. Being on stage, doing a show, getting ready, the smell of the dressing room, all that very quickly charmed me. In high school, I did improv and I realized that I liked to make people laugh.

Did you read a lot?

Yes. With my mother, one evening a week, we went to the library. It was very important. I read everything The Short Scale, I read Aurore, the child martyr very young. Another very important thing for me is Caleb’s daughterswhich I have read and watched more than once.

I was watching Caleb’s daughters religiously when I was in CEGEP. I felt like I was seeing cinema on Quebec television for the first time.

Anything that evokes that era, I really liked that. I loved going to the old-fashioned village of Drummondville.

Were your tastes very Quebecois?

Very Quebecois! For my mother, it was important. Even today, new Quebec novels are the ones I read the most.

When we talk about the sustainability of our culture and worry about Netflix, it’s reassuring to see that the collective reflex is still to read Quebec novels. Nobody fears that there are too many American or French novels in bookstores.

We hear about Quebec books and not only at the Book Fair. There is more concern in TV and cinema.

It has to do with the means required, I imagine. Writing a book costs a lot less than making a film.

You write whatever you want in a book. When you write for the screen, you are limited in your budgets, in your imagination, in your number of characters. It’s ridiculous, but we’re cutting everything! It’s hard for creation.

We no longer even have the budgets today that we had at the time of Daughters of Caleb.

It’s ridiculous! It would be fun to have the means to achieve our ambitions. That we can export ourselves and project ourselves outside our little bubble. We are still thinking about shows for a traditional TV audience. Except that people who watch traditional TV also have Netflix!

My parents listen Fifth rankbut also Ripleywhich is in black and white and has a different rhythm. Everything is possible on TV, but it seems that we don’t have confidence that the public will follow us in what we do more niche.

Traditional TV will have to adapt. We no longer consume it like before. I no longer have television appointments. I catch up on what I want to catch up on.

Me too. It was fun, the meetings, that said. When we all met on Monday at 7:30 p.m. to watch The little lifeanother big influence from my childhood. I was looking forward to Monday evening. We don’t have that anymore.

Were your tastes in music also Quebecois when you were young?

Yes, I loved Céline, Johanne Blouin, Lara Fabian. I loved vocal singers. But I have two older brothers who introduced me to Björk, Smashing Pumpkins and Travis when I was in high school. Afterwards, I had a very folk pass with Neil Young, which stuck. I listen with no headphones. But I realize that I discover a lot less things. I’m really less interested in new things.

You know that there are studies which show that there is an age when we stop listening to new music [vers 33 ans] ?

My boyfriend told me that! I notice that I have less curiosity and I blame myself for it. I listen to podcasts more than music, except when I’m writing and listening to instrumental music. Alexandra Stréliski or film music by Ennio Morricone. I discovered Flore Laurentienne, which I really like.

I also like old country music: Skeeter Davis, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton. I started composing music with Raphaëlle Lalande, for our duo Joli-Bois, and we were in those waters, country-folk.

When I was young, Dolly Parton represented glitz and cheesiness to me. But I discovered over time that she was a really interesting woman. It’s not an icon for nothing.

She broke down doors! She has assumed who she is, what she is and how she presents herself. I like it very much.

And in cinema, what influenced you?

Since I have two older brothers, I watched a lot of action movies when I was young. We watched movies with Stallone, like The cliff of death. Die Hard came very early in my life! I loved it.

Your Christmas movie is Die Hard ?

Really ! My boyfriend and I listen Die Hard every Christmas. I know it’s extremely violent, but it’s also extremely well written. It’s a lesson in screenwriting. A film that really had an impact on me when I was little was Doctor March’s Four Daughters. I also really liked what Greta Gerwig did with it. And then quite quickly, there were the Coen brothers, as teenagers, again thanks to my brothers. The Big LebowskiI had never seen anything that made me laugh so much.

The dark humor of the Coen brothers was very important in my cinephile.

They are still my favorite filmmakers. Burn After ReadingI find this to be one of their underrated films. In Quebec cinema, when Stéphane Lafleur arrived with Continental, a film without a gunit did me a lot of good. As The Invincibles by François Létourneau on TV. I was at the Conservatoire and with my gang, we had the impression of a call for air. The hope of perhaps being able to create something that resembles us. This kind of fun that we saw less before.

It doesn’t surprise me that the offbeat humor of Lafleur and Létourneau resonates with you. There is a community of spirit there, it seems to me.

At the same time, I really like it sometimes just a good Christmas movie! (Laughs) I often rewatch TV series. It’s like a comfort blanket. The Officefor example, or Girlswhich was important to me. It gave me the taste to talk about the condition of women, feminist issues, which is what I do in Inhale exhale. Sometimes, it involves details that we don’t talk about elsewhere, but in which we recognize ourselves.

The second season of the series Inhale exhale will air next summer on Crave.