“Twilight for a Killer”: Eric Bruno and “Revenge on the Life” of a Hitman

In “Crépuscule pour un tueur,” Eric Bruno plays Donald Lavoie, the notorious Quebec killer who revolted in the 1970s. This role was an opportunity for the actor to delve into the psyche of this man of uncertain fate.

Assassin Claude Dubois (Benoit Guin), Donald Lavoie has murdered at least 27 people on his orders. But now, at the behest of his boss, he must kill a loved one, which he did not do. He finds himself caught between the Dubois clan and Detective Sergeant Patrick Burns (Sylvan Marcel), who absolutely wants him to become a detective.

Epic …

It all started with an audition, as Eric Bruno pointed out during an interview with QMI. “My agent sent me the script. I didn’t know Donald, I knew Dubois by reputation—my family comes from the Laurentians. They were the legendary clan of Quebec crime in the ’70s.”

“Reading the script,” he said, “I kept going on the Internet to check if what I was reading really happened.” But, oddly enough, the actor never noticed his resemblance to the killer. Eric Bruno was deeply interested in this unusual story, and he passed “the test while researching the character with Raymond [St-Jean, le réalisateur]. We were trying to do something together. It took 40 minutes, and we did 10 takes. It was much more work than just an audition.”

Once the role was in his pocket, the actor immersed himself in the character’s real life, talking to people who knew him at the time or who still see him today. Donald Lavoie has been living hidden, anonymous, since his collaboration with the authorities.

But how do we get into the psyche of this killer without obvious emotion? “I’m not here to judge him. I don’t think he’s crazy. I think he’s very narcissistic and has been self-medicating.” [avec l’alcool et les drogues]. “

“The first thing I did was talk to psychiatrists,” the actor explained. He then studied “only two video clips” of the killer with specialists who told him whether Lavoe was “fasting, if he had eaten, if he was lying”.

“The sum of his actions says something. I don’t need to play the fool. The first kill is hard, the third is right. It’s a job,” Eric Bruno dubbed.

He explained Donald Lavoie’s way of working by needing approval, not from his father—who had abandoned him and put him in an orphanage—but first from Dubois and then from the police.

“Donald Lavoie is looking for a clan, he is looking to be appreciated. He wanted money, power and respect, ”emphasized the actor, speaking about the main motives of the killer.

“The film is skewed,” said Eric Bruno, referring to the fact that spectators must feel empathy “to follow me, but realize that Lavoie doesn’t make the good gestures.”

It’s a coincidence that “if you see me a lot these days,” Eric Bruno said willingly, “everything was shot during an epidemic.” He doesn’t give up on writing, however, and the author of “Before the Breakdown” with his wife Kim Levesque-Lizotte and “Virage – Double Fault” with Louis Morissette and Marie-Hélène Lipeau-Tachereau notes that he delves daily into this exercise.

And the realization, is it in his plans? As he puts it, “When I write, I also realize a little.”

• Crépuscule pour un tueur hits Quebec theaters March 10.