Featured in “Turn – double fault”: Éric Bruneau, between acting and writing

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Éric Bruneau has been working for weeks on the texts for the second season of his series Before the crash with his wife Kim Lévesque Lizotte. 

He has always written, but after the birth of his daughter Marguerite in June 2018, he challenged himself to further explore his craft, with the desire to expand his playground.

He went to shoot in English in Toronto in the series Coronerand he began to juggle script ideas. His series Before the crash, broadcast last fall on ICI Télé, and Virage – double fault, were born in quick succession, including the eight episodes that he co-signed with Louis Morissette and Marie-Hélène Lebeau-Taschereau are offered this winter on Noovo.

Avant le crash is particularly interested in the excessive ambition of young professionals who are ready to do anything, even to stab their friends to achieve their ends. Turn – double faultrather tackles the issues of transmission, surpassing oneself and the stubbornness to pursue a sport – here tennis – while his body is worn out.

We have seen it in the 4th episode of Virage, his character, Charles Rivard, hit rock bottom due to his overuse of drugs – anxiolytics and painkillers – and he tried to take his own life, he who always wanted to please his passive-aggressive mother, Françoise (Sylvie Léonard), his first tennis coach.

Going uphill

In the other half of the series directed by Rafaël Ouellet (< em>Arsenault & Son), we witness the redemption of Rivard, who goes up the slope and becomes the coach of the young hopeful Carla Jean-Baptiste (Audrey Roger). As parents are often omnipresent with young athletes, he will have to deal with a very involved father, Joseph (Adrien Lacroix). He will also have to “deal freight” with his mother, after a difficult drug treatment.

“Charles will face the consequences of his choices, he will have to look in the mirror to find out why he is got there. His next challenge is to make peace with himself to be able to transmit to the athlete who will land in his life. Sylvain [Louis Morissette] will reach out to her and Charles will try to use his own experience so that Clara does not make the same mistakes as him,” summed up Éric Bruneau.

His research for the writing of Virage – double fault led him to speak to several athletes, all sports combined, who spoke to him about parental pressure, performance pressure and the pressure to pursue the one thing you know how to do.

“Athletes are all playing too long and parents are all pushing too hard. I did not invent anything, these are stories that were told to me. It's pretty common the amount of medication an athlete takes to be able to keep performing. There are abuses that mean that when you take away the sport, all that remains is the medication.”

Double hat

Éric Bruneau, who will be 40 years next April, wants to continue to wear the double hat of actor and author. “It was an extraordinary learning period and it is even more vulnerable than the game, in the sense that it starts even more from you, you create characters”, he underlined.

The comedian has been everywhere for a few months. In addition to Before the crash and Virage – double fault, he also distinguished himself in The night when Laurier Gaudreault woke up , series by Xavier Dolan which is available on Club illico.

“I have strong doubts about creation, but after 16 years in the business I take more risks, I also give myself freedom, I detach myself more and more from the gaze of others. […] I had a hundred days of shooting in 2022, so it's like a marathon; you gain in relaxation, in confidence, and that's the beauty of aging, you get out of the way to better serve the project, the director, the story and the character.”

In March, we will see Éric Bruneau in Crépuscule pour un tueur, by Raymond St-Jean, a film whose release has been postponed due to the pandemic.

Produced by KOTV, the series Turn – double fault airs every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Noovo. You can catch up on episodes already broadcast on noovo.ca.