Xavier Dolan doesn’t play the game. he rewrote it, mid-sentence.
At 25, he’d already made five features, won Cannes’ Jury Prize, and turned interviews into confessionals. He didn’t ask for permission. He just started talking. In rapid French. In tight jeans. With more to say than most directors twice his age.
We caught him in a rare moment post-burnout, pre-reinvention.
Still sharp. Still stubborn. Still full of feeling.
So, I tracked down Xavier Dolan (One of my all-time great directors)
Not for industry gossip. Not for box office spin.
I asked him twelve questions. About the real stuff.
Mothers.
Desire.
Silence.
The mess of being young and looked at too closely.
He answered all of it.
Of course he did.
The result? A portrait of an artist who never stopped feeling too much.
And refused to apologise for it.
12 Questions for Xavier Dolan
Director. Actor. Auteur. Who said being bound to the impossible was a bad thing?
1. Xavier, do you remember the exact moment you realised you were going to make films people feel in their teeth?
Was it a scene, a song, a heartbreak, or just boredom?
I never realized that, actually. People were always generous in their feedback— in how they shared their experiences with me, online or in letters, always handwritten and nice. But I never thought they’d connect so deeply with things that, to me, felt so specific or personal. I tried remaining true to myself, always. I still am. Sometimes, that’s brought me happiness, and a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes, it’s brought me suffering. But I don’t regret making any of those films. I only regret how some of them came into being. Some of that “suffering” could’ve been, let’s say, lessened. Calibrated. Ultimately though, it led me to make mistakes that are more precious than any other successful idea or gimmick so, yeah — no regrets.
2. You once said you “make films for people who talk too much, feel too deeply, and sleep too little.”
Was Laurence Anyways your love letter to all of them?
I don’t even remember saying that! It’s kind of true, I guess. Though I’d love to democratize my films for people who can actually sleep, too. Widen my range and audience a little. They’re all love letters, I think — to characters, to stories. I do everything passionately and intensely, so it all ends up feeling like love to me, and love often bankrupts you because you give it everything without counting. I’ve always put every scent back into my films to have more, do more, go farther, pay for that wind, get that extra day, license that song. And some people are wiser and make money while making beautiful films, good for them, they’re smarter. But the one scenario I can’t get my head around is spending a year or two with people you hate to tell a story you don’t love in which you care for nothing. You couldn’t pay me enough. Which is why I’m poor. I have a house that’s 100% mortgaged and four credits cards. Yaaaaay-yo.
3. What’s harder: coming out, breaking up, or explaining your aesthetic choices to an exhausted funding board?
(Be honest. We won’t tell Telefilm.)
They’re all painful. I’ve had great meetings with readers from institutions over the years. But the first one was catastrophic, which is why I went and financed it myself with money from child acting gigs. Borrowing money from my father, my uncles, friends in the dubbing industry. Love money. And pretending to buy a house to access funds that were otherwise blocked… Seemed easier.
4. In Tom at the Farm, grief is practically a character. Do you write from memory, or pure invention?
And are you friends with either?
In this particular case, it was an adaptation so, neither really. Although I always insert personal elements in any material I’ve ever adapted. And so I’d say memory is the most common tool in writing, for me. But I generally recycle and adjust, so I customize memory, or memories — of laughter, dialogue, décor, etc. — to fit a certain narrative or tone. I don’t know that I’ve ever invented anything, just reused or variegated patterns, tropes, situations which I never suspected I didn’t have the sole monopoly of, then realized people were familiar with them. Because they had lived it. Seen it. Cocteau said : Everything’s been done. Expect by me.” I always truly loved that one. Because there’s the arrogant, assured and almost megalomaniac aspect of it — but only if you choose to read it that way. Which I’m sure many people do. But to me it’s always meant : everyone is unique and therefore have the possibility to revisit the same thing differently.
5. You seem bound to impossibly beautiful suffering. Ever thought of doing a musical comedy about two people who stay together and don’t destroy each other?
Or is that your personal horror movie? I’m not bound to it !
I’m interested in it because it offers possibilities and contrasts that perfect, uneventful romances don’t always present. Musical comedy or horror, aren’t all films problems awaiting solving, or a perfect situation met with chaos, etc ? I’m not at all into people destroying each other, but rather, doing everything in their power not to. It’s just that we’re so bad at it, aren’t we ?
6. Let’s talk The First Image. Is there one image in your own life you return to—over and over—like a reel stuck in your head?
And has it changed since you started making cinema? Film images ?
I don’t know if they’re images or atmospheres. Nicole Kidman at the opera in Birth, Holly Hunter in The Piano, collapsing to her knees in that swelling dress… Julianne Moore snarling at that nosy pharmacist in Magnolia. All women — surprise. And if we’re talking an actual image from my own personal life… probably the streets of my childhood in the fall, around Halloween, with all these pink-brick houses all lined up in rows or crescents. Or the earthy path that led to my great aunt’s yellow house on the shores of the Saint-Lawrence River.
7. Is It’s Only the End of the World secretly a comedy, or is that just a coping mechanism for those of us with complicated family dinners?
Because we laughed. Then cried. Then called our mothers.
You seem to be describing a normal, healthy reaction… But to answer your question, no, it isn’t a comedy. Lol. An agonizing writer goes home to try and tell his estranged family he’s dying…?? I think laughing and crying, in whichever order, always makes for a balanced, realistic dynamic, and I’ve always found it paid off in films. But truly the most rewarding transition must be from laughing one minute and being lured into crying the next, because it’s unexpected and deceives our instincts. As opposed to crying and then laughing about it, which we sometimes force as artists to excuse our emotionality I guess. We feel insecure or uneasy about the emotions we want to stir and share — and rightfully so, as they’re often shamed and perceived as cheap or inelegant. Clearly I disagree.
8. Do you still audition for your own life?
Or have you cast someone else to play “Xavier Dolan” now?
I’m trying to steer clear of anything artificial. I don’t like fake people, I don’t like fake friendships and I don’t like fake environments. I’ve surrounded myself with friends I respect and admire — deliberately — so that my personal life doesn’t feel like an audition or a performance. But, inevitably, there’s a facade. A mask that I need to wear in certain situations. A role I have to play and that makes me wonder : when will it finally be simple. And then I realize, if it were easy, it probably wouldn’t be worth it.
9. Your costumes often say more than dialogue. If you could wear only one look from one of your films for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Yes, we’re judging your answer.
Why ask a question you already know the answer to ? I’d don the wedding gown Anne wears in I Killed My Mother. It belonged to my grandmother. One of the costume assistants put it in a garbage bag to protect it as it was big and billowing. So guess what happened next. Yeah. So since it’s no longer available, I’ll gladly don the pink sweater with black bows her character wears when she screams at the principal a few scenes later. Easier to wear, more functional.
10. What would you tell 20-year-old Xavier, freshly off I Killed My Mother, if you could tap him on the shoulder at Cannes?
Would he believe you?
1- Don’t do drugs. 2- Of course not.
10. If your films were fragrances, which one would people wear to a breakup and which one to a comeback?
(Scent is memory, after all. And your films tend to linger.)
Ah, that’s nice, thank you. I can’t speak for people. And I really have no clue. All my answers are obvious. Mommy or It’s Only the End of the World for a breakup? Can’t it be a peaceful breakup? I’d come back with Matthias and Maxime but it’s too friendly, like a no-sex situation… Here is what I’d wear in real life, as real fragrances : Chanel Égoïste Platinum to a breakup (very macho, robust, hairy, kind of agressive, parallel parks in one shot) and Méchant Loup by l’Artisan Parfumeur for a comeback (mysterious, kind, woody, playful with hints of liquorice, will swallow).
11. Who do you secretly wish would star in one of your films—but you’ve never dared ask?
Kate Winslet. I’ve asked. I’ll ask again.
12. Is It’s Only the End of the World secretly a comedy, or is that just a coping mechanism for those of us with complicated family dinners?
Because we laughed. Then cried. Then called our mothers
I’m glad you would ask twice. But my answer remains the same.
— Roger Wyllie, View Mag
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