Urban Desires Interview

An Interview with Denys Arcand, by
Carl Capatorto

Carl Capatorto spoke with Arcand in his New York hotel room as he prepared for the film's opening.

DA: I'll tell you I have no theory about that. Strangely enough, I think it has a lot to do with casting. I spend an inordinate amount of time casting. On this project for instance I spent a month and a half casting, which means I saw every young guy and girl in Montreal, in Toronto, in Vancouver, in LA and in New York.... That's the beauty of not doing a film with stars. I could pick anyone. There was no commercial pressure of picking a name player or whatever, so I could pick people that I genuinely liked. Which I did. And once this is done, strangely enough, these people seem to find a tone. And it's been like that in every one of my films. So I'm not consciously trying to achieve something, a uniformity of style or a coherence. It's there. Because I choose these people myself.... I've chosen them, they're there, they trust me, I trust them and we end up with something that usually people find coherent.

DA: It's the most mysterious thing and there's no easy answer. There's not one answer. It's like an orchestra, I mean if you're going to lead an orchestra, musicians will trust you or not. Instantly. There are orchestra directors that are immediately trusted by their fiddlers. Others are not. And you don't know why.... it has to do with sort of -- a sort of charisma, a sort of truth. I'm not doing movies for money. I'm not doing movies for prestige. I'm doing movies because I love doing movies, because this is what I like best in life. And I'm trying to do each time the best movie possible and it's all -- it's a hundred percent thing with me. So I think actors feel that. And if they feel that you're giving that much, usually they will -- if they've been hired for the good reasons -- give you their trust. That's what I find. I've never had problems with any actor. Ever.