I wrote most of this article a few months ago, still energized after an intense and rewarding day on the set of Alertes. The twist? My scene was cut in the edit.
That can be a frustrating reality of the profession, of course, but it also leads me to something I wanted to share: the final result does not always belong to us. What does belong to us is the process. And even though the scene was cut, I can still say the work was worth it. This is the story of a role I prepared carefully, a wonderful day of filming, and the satisfaction of simply… doing the job well.
The preparation…
The strength of a scene often depends on things that are easy to miss in a quick read of the script. A large part of acting is learning to find and embody those subtleties. Even a short exchange, a few seemingly ordinary words, can require you to examine the deeper motivation, choose an intonation, a look, a silence. The work often lives in that search for precision, where what is not said can matter as much as the dialogue itself.
Alertes: when the character resists the actor
On my first read, the main scene involving my character seemed fairly straightforward, even inviting. I was playing an officer from the fictionalized version of the Sûreté du Québec used in the series, one of the first responders at the scene of a newborn’s abduction.
Below is an excerpt from the script showing the dialogue and circumstances I am referring to.
A closer analysis, however, revealed an unexpected difficulty. The script indicated that the character should seem confused, nervous and somewhat overwhelmed. That raised a question for me: how do I justify that reaction in an experienced sergeant who is certainly confronting something horrific, but who has also been trained to handle crises?
The gap between the direction on the page and what I imagined to be the character’s professional logic was difficult for me to solve. After trying several approaches without finding one that felt convincing, I decided I needed an outside eye. I asked Valérie Le Maire, an actor and coach, to help me explore a scene whose apparent simplicity was hiding a real acting challenge.
Finding an anchor in the script
Valérie welcomed me with her usual wisdom and immediately said, “It’s all in the script. You just have to break it down.” Her approach was to help me find a personal anchor, something close enough to my own reality that I could transfer it into the character’s imaginary circumstances. She suggested I draw on my experience as a father. “It could be your daughter who was just abducted,” she said.
Then she had me visualize the concrete details already described in the script. “Picture the scene. There’s an overturned stroller on the ground, yellow tape everywhere securing the perimeter, SQ officers in protective gear so they don’t contaminate the crime scene… Find something strong. Imagine looking at the yellow tape. Imagine looking at the stroller on the ground. That’s it.” Then she told me, “Keep your eyes on the stroller and run your lines.”
Immediately, a heaviness settled into me. It was not simple nervousness anymore, but the unbearable weight of imagining that this horror could touch my own family. That gave meaning to the character’s slower speech and even to his destabilization. If Reid is shaken by the thought that this could be his own daughter, another fear appears too: in the shock, has he forgotten something essential in the procedure?
Valérie had opened the door I had not been able to find. Suddenly the construction of the character and the preparation of the scene were connected to something tangible inside an imaginary situation.
Rehearsing with my beautiful Annick
After that revealing session with Valérie, the work of fully inhabiting Sergeant Reid continued through refinement and rehearsal. I have the enormous good fortune of being able to count on the help of my partner, Annick Benoit. With her strong theatre training and remarkably precise eye, Annick is my rock when I prepare auditions and scenes.
Over the days and weeks leading up to the shoot, we continued the work Valérie had started. We rehearsed, searched and dug into the scenes, exploring the nuances of the character and the intention underneath each line until we found a posture and emotional life that felt right for a sergeant confronting the unthinkable.
It is a rigorous and intimate process, and mutual trust allows us to go quite far in the search. The work finally clicked on the day Annick told me, with her usual honesty, “Your Sergeant Reid is endearing. I believe him.” Coming from someone whose standards and eye I know so well, that was the moment I truly felt ready to shoot.
Alert: everything can change…
The energy was palpable the moment I arrived on the Alertes set. It felt like a well-oiled machine run by a terrific crew. Base camp was in a discreet, almost institutional-looking building on Montreal’s South Shore, the kind of place that could easily pass for police offices.
My call was at 6 a.m. and I was coming from the North Shore, so I had built in plenty of extra time for Montreal traffic. Nathalie Lacoste, the second assistant director, welcomed me warmly and showed me to my dressing room, telling me my costume would arrive shortly. A few minutes later, Fanny from wardrobe appeared with Sergeant Reid’s uniform and thermal underwear. “I really recommend wearing the warm layers,” she said with a smile. “It’s a bit chilly, and you’ll be outside all day.”
Then it was off to makeup. There was not much to do beyond softening the circles under my eyes — a small magic trick that somehow took ten years off me. They even offered sunscreen, knowing we would spend the day outside. And that was it. Ready in no time.
I was told transportation was waiting to take us about twenty minutes away to Mont-Saint-Hilaire. “It’s the red minivan outside. Four other actors are waiting for you.” I climbed into the back seat beside Frédéric Pierre, with Julie Du Page, Isabelle St-Jacques Latour and Mylène St-Sauveur in front of us. Off we went.
Once we arrived, we got familiar with the location. The crew gave us our police gear: full utility belt, radio, protective vest. Then we headed to holding.
Before stepping into the scene with Mylène as Lily-Rose and Frédéric as Renaud, we briefly discussed how we were approaching the material. The script described Sergeant Reid as speaking slowly enough to irritate Lily-Rose, which made me curious, so I asked Mylène how she saw it.
“Actually, my character is pretty empathetic, especially in a child-abduction situation,” she explained, moving slightly away from what I had inferred from the page. Frédéric added, “And I show the urgency by leaving abruptly, frustrated that we don’t have enough clues.” Those short exchanges helped us adjust the scene toward a more natural chemistry.
On set: when the director changes the rules
I arrived ready to play a Sergeant Reid who had been shaken by what he was seeing, a little destabilized by the circumstances. Then, seconds before we shot, director Julien Hurteau gave me a completely different direction: “Forget the nervousness in the script. It breaks the rhythm and we could lose the audience. Your character needs to be efficient and professional. He delivers the key information to Lily-Rose and Renaud. That’s what matters.”
New direction. All that psychology I had spent hours refining had to adjust immediately. And truthfully, I understood. I had found the original description slightly odd myself when I first read it. That is the reality of the profession, especially in television: the story comes first, and the actor has to adapt quickly.
It reminded me perfectly of something acting coach Tom Todoroff often taught us: practise your scenes in as many different ways as possible — laughing, crying, yelling — so that if a director asks for something completely different at the last second, you can respond without panic. Being ready for change is part of staying calm enough to work when the surprise arrives.
Keeping the character’s soul even when the action changes
That does not mean the character suddenly becomes an empty shell. I still carried Reid’s complexity and history inside me. The actions changed; the essence did not.
For that, I held onto another wonderful piece of advice from Valérie Le Maire: “Imagine Reid is the lead character in another series, and he’s only making a brief appearance in Alertes.” I loved that. It allowed me to preserve the character’s depth — what Stella Adler might describe as giving a role greater scale — even while serving the more direct approach the story required.
The real payoff: roll up your sleeves and keep going
Then came the realization. The episode Ma fille, pour toujours aired on TVA and, without any ceremony, my scene did not survive the final edit. My first reaction? A little disappointment, obviously. You work hard and want to see the result on screen. I had even hoped the scene might become useful material for my demo reel.
But the disappointment quickly gave way to something else.
Reading back through everything I have just described — the work with Valérie, rehearsals with Annick, the energy of the set, the conversations with the other actors, the last-minute adjustment from the director — I realize that the most important part had already happened. I had a wonderful day of filming. I had an enormous amount of fun breaking down and building Sergeant Reid. I was hired and paid as a 2e rôle, a professional recognition of the work whether or not the scene ultimately aired.
In the end, that is the job. It is loving the process more than the result. It is being satisfied that you did the work well, rolling up your sleeves and moving on to the next project. Sergeant Reid may have appeared on television for only a few seconds, but he taught me a great deal. And no editing room can cut that part away.
