There are roles you play. And there are others you carry. Luc, in Mathieu Dodier’s film Ricochets, belongs to the second category. When I landed the role, I knew I was stepping into something grey, troubled and demanding. What I did not know yet was how long Luc would stay with me.
Building him from the inside out
I believe difficult roles require honest, patient, grounded work. So before I even began working on the scenes, I built a past for Luc. A detailed, researched biography that I wrote with the invaluable help of my partner, Annick Benoit.
Annick is a playwright with strong artistic training and a sharp eye for authenticity. She guided me with a rare combination of acting intelligence and sensitivity. Together, we dug into Luc’s childhood wounds and imagined his rural environment, isolation and family trauma. We explored his complicated relationship with his older brother Matthieu, both an admired rival and a substitute father figure after their father’s accidental death — a loss that pushed the family into financial hardship and also left Luc with a head injury, a mark that was both physical and invisible and would shape so much of what followed. We traced his imagined memories, his sense of maternal neglect, broken relationships and accumulated silences. We tried to understand what he does not say — and why he does not say it; why a simple accusation of lying can unleash such devastating anger.
But Annick did not stop at theory. She gave me concrete acting challenges. She asked me, for example, to inhabit Luc in an ordinary situation outside the script so we could discover how he might move, speak and express himself. In one exercise, I had to imagine Luc during a rare trip to Montreal, invited by his brother to a karaoke bar. What song would he sing to make himself lovable, to exist in the eyes of the brother he had never stopped admiring? Without hesitation, I answered: Éric Lapointe’s Loadé comme un gun. Why that one? Because it carries that pain, that visceral and awkward need to be recognized — a little like the bull-like force we had identified in Luc, that wild energy ready to charge ahead without always measuring the ricochets. So we put the song on the living-room screen. I put Luc on my shoulders. And I sang. Not to be funny, and not to perform. I sang the way Luc would sing: tense, awkward, but driven by that burning need to be seen.
Working with Mathieu Dodier
Director Mathieu Dodier trusted me from the beginning, and that trust was essential. I felt that he saw more in Luc than a simply “disturbing character.” He saw a complicated human being — someone who is both a victim and a carrier of hope. Hope for redemption, healing, change.
Our conversations around the film were rich. We were not only talking about scenes and dialogue. We talked about what it can mean to be a man in a rural community, to live with invisible pain — including the effects of a traumatic brain injury and the challenges of rehabilitation outside a major urban centre — and to remain behind while other people leave. Mathieu had a very clear vision, but he gave his actors a great deal of room for inner work. For an actor, that kind of respect is invaluable.
A story of reverberations
Ricochets is a tense, deeply human film about what remains after time, pain and silence have worn so much away. It looks at the way unresolved trauma can ricochet through a life, and how missed gestures and unspoken words can produce consequences that keep travelling — sometimes destructively.
Luc is not a hero. He is not a villain either. He is the kind of man who exists in communities across Quebec: shaped by rural life, by limited access to help and by an upbringing where people learn to endure rather than talk. He carries the marks of his wounds, some visible — like the scar on his forehead — and others that cannot be seen.
Why I am proud of this role
I am proud to have played Luc not because of his violence or darkness, but because of what he says about us. About the people we forget. The people we judge too quickly. The people who might simply want someone to reach out a hand, but no longer know how to ask for one.
I put a great deal of myself into this character: discipline, instinct and vulnerability — the last of those being essential if I was going to reach the truth of a man like Luc, marked by chronic pain, an almost constant distrust of others and a sense of inferiority that comes through in his tense interactions. I tried to understand how that shell was built, how his capacity for violence can coexist with his wounded humanity, and how he can be both someone who suffers and someone who causes suffering. With Annick’s help, I dug into every detail, every silence and every tension in his gaze.
I hope Luc leaves no one indifferent. He certainly changed me.
The virtual production stage
A few behind-the-scenes photos offer a glimpse of the remarkable virtual production studio at MELS in Montreal, where we spent a full day filming the train scene.
Festival selections and upcoming screenings
Ricochets is now making its way toward audiences. The film was selected for the prestigious 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival as part of the Fantastiques week-ends du cinéma québécois. It was also selected for the Festival Émergence de Montréal in the Best Fiction Short Film category. More information will follow about future theatrical screenings outside the festival circuit.
Fantasia International Film Festival
Festival Émergence de Montréal
The red 1967 Barracuda convertible
A look at the kind of car we used while filming Ricochets. Thank you to Manuel and Louise for this invaluable loan. The car itself is practically a character in the story.
