When Sylvain Marcel met Chloé Robichaud, who offered him the chance to play Patrick, father and agent of Emma, a role played by Sophie Desmarais, in Happy Days, he told her straight away: “That’s mine. » Tired of being confined for several years to the roles of good guys, the actor ardently wanted to add this role to his roadmap. Even if it required him to dive back into gray areas.
“My father was a Maurice, like Patrick’s father, alcoholic and violent,” says Sylvain Marcel. That’s why when I saw Chloé, I told her that I knew these kinds of people and what they are capable of doing. I simply reproduced a little of what I had seen in my life. I too had to fight with this violence so as not to subject it to my sons. I haven’t used drugs for 14 years, I’m really a different man. At the time, I sometimes had to leave for days to quell the violence I had experienced. »
“With Sylvain, it was immediately clear that he brought the dimension that Chloé was looking for in the role of the father, that is to say the charisma, the smile,” remembers Sophie Desmarais. On paper, Patrick is a character who may seem like the villain of the film, but he shouldn’t be played that way. We immediately had a pleasure playing together and getting back together. Quickly, with Sylvain, we were very united, in humor to feel confident when playing scenes of great intensity, difficult to do. I needed it so I wouldn’t feel burned out. »
From the outside, Patrick seems the ideal father. He was always there for his daughter, paid for her studies, managed her career and ensured that she could realize her dream of conducting an orchestra. He is also her harshest critic, demanding that she tirelessly repeat Schönberg’s Pelléas et Mélisande on the piano – an idea of the actress who played Mélisande at the TNM – under the pretext that he does not feel the anger that ‘it smolders within her. Later, he judged her too immature to tackle Mahler’s work.
“Patrick coolly invested in his daughter’s career,” explains Sylvain Marcel. He didn’t do this for free; it had to make money, but not necessarily financially. He is someone who comes from a modest and violent background, who tells himself that he will not repeat history with his daughter, but he does so psychologically. Obviously, he is doing what we call projection, he wants her to succeed where he has failed. He is an excessively egocentric being, a narcissistic pervert, a complete control freak, and Chloé’s genius is to make me feel that behind this character, we sense a sort of suffering or weakness. Which gives its color to the character of Patrick. »
If Emma has never lacked for anything, from the first scene of Happy Days, we discover that she still missed out on her childhood a little, since her father never took the time to teach her how to swim like other children.
“Not only does she not know how to swim, but she doesn’t know how to drive,” points out Sophie Desmarais. It’s her father who drives her everywhere all the time; she is like a prisoner of a lack of autonomy. When we see her in her condo, we understand that she doesn’t cook, except when her mother, Maude Guérin, is there. She is clearly someone who is in her head, in her music, in her seriousness, who is challenged on all sides in her relationships. »
In fact, the romantic relationship she experiences with Naëlle (Nour Belkhiria), cellist in the orchestra, is not easy either. Emma wants to impose herself in the life of Naëlle, who is not ready to announce this affair to her family or to her ex, the father of her son. Like Patrick towards him, Emma is odious towards Naëlle, not hesitating to emotionally blackmail her.
“It’s a character who is deeply alone, who really tries to connect with others,” thinks Sophie Desmarais. With her friends, she barely succeeds; It’s just with Naëlle’s young son that she manages to be herself. What I found interesting in Chloé’s dialogues, in the characters’ relationships, was the failure in communion. The goal of a conductor is to commune with others through music. The more Emma learns to free herself in her personal life, the more as an artist she is able to connect to a certain intensity, to an authenticity, to her true gestures which allow her to communicate through music. »
“Patrick is suffocating his daughter, he transmitted this emotional breakdown to her,” says Sylvain Marcel. Music is a character in the film. We see this in these plays where she is cut off from her emotions; the conductor who is played by Vincent Leclerc tells her that we don’t feel her rage when she conducts Schönberg. Without knowing it, without wanting to, Patrick will free his daughter a little to finally free her. »
“What touches me a lot in what Chloé wrote is that the passing of violence will have an end. With what happens towards the end of the film, I find that there is a hope of choosing yourself, of reconnecting with who you are by being aware of the baggage that you have, by making choices that are appropriate for you and not be under the influence of the inner traumas that gnaw at us”, concludes Sophie Desmarais.
