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Gilles Renaud, actor (born 25 September 1944 in Montréal, Québec). In a 40-year career in which he has played some 60 different theatrical roles, Gilles Renaud has established himself as one of the leading figures on the Québec stage. Not only in theatre but also in film and on television, in roles ranging from Cuirette in Hosanna to Cherry Sunday in Cover Girl to Père Didace in Le Survenant, Renaud has explored a wide range of dramatic registers and attracted a wide variety of audiences, without ever sacrificing his intelligent interpretations of the characters that he has played.
Renaud graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1967 and began his stage career in 1968 in Hamlet, prince de Québec, by Robert Gurik, on the theatre-ship L'Escale, and in Un simple soldat by Marcel Dubé, at Montréal’s Nouvelle Compagnie Théâtrale. His appearance in these two plays marked the start of a commitment to Québec playwrights that has continued throughout his career.
In the early 1970s, Renaud participated in the production of five plays by Jean-Claude Germain at the Centre du Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui, in Montréal. Renaud also performed in three new plays that marked milestones in the development of Québec’s theatrical repertoire: Wouf wouf by Yves Sauvageau (Nouvelle Compagnie Théâtrale, 1974), La Charge de l'orignal épormyable by Claude Gauvreau (Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, 1974) and HA ha!... by Réjean Ducharme (Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, 1978).
Around this time, Renaud also began a professional relationship that was to have a decisive impact on his career, with famed Québec playwright Michel Tremblay and director André Brassard, who directed so many of Tremblay’s plays. Over the years, Renaud has appeared in some 10 plays written by Tremblay, in roles such as Cuirette in Hosanna (1973) and the narrator of Bonbons assortis (2006), and some 20 plays directed by Brassard. With his riveting, naturalistic acting, Renaud has brought to life such characters as Gabriel in Bonjour, là, bonjour (1974), Léopold in À toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou (1977), Claude in En pièces détachées (1979) and, most of all, the boorish, arrogant Alex I in Le Vrai Monde ? (1987). For his arresting performance in this last role, Renaud received the Prix de la critique from the Québec theatre critics’ association.
Renaud has also appeared frequently in French-language productions of foreign plays at Montréal’s Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, such as Genet’s The Balcony (1977) and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1983), both directed by André Brassard; Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, directed by René Richard Cyr (1991); and Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s Play Strindberg, directed by Yves Desgagnés (1988). He is very much at home in realist theatre and has given brilliant performances in French-language productions of American plays with the Compagnie Jean-Duceppe, most notably in Arthur Miller’s The Prize (1991) and After the Fall (1994), directed by Yves Desgagnés.
In 1997, Lebanese-Canadian playwright, actor and director Wajdi Mouawad gave Renaud the role of the dead father awaiting burial in his play Littoral (Théâtre Ô Parleur/Festival de Théâtre des Amériques). Renaud’s engaging performance in this role, which he recreated in Mouawad’s film adaptation of the play in 2004, seemed to open new avenues for him. In the ensuing years, he put in strong performances as the jaded policeman Donny in a French-language production of English-Canadian playwright George F. Walker’s Adult Entertainment and The End of Civilization (Théâtre de Quat'Sous, 1999) and in the title role of Monsieur Bovary (Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, 2001), for which he received the Grand Prix du Trident. Renaud also appeared in the cast of the excellent production of Martin Crimp’s Traitement, directed by Claude Poissant (Théâtre PÀP, 2005).
In the early 2000s, Renaud’s film career seemed to take off again. He had always appeared in lots of films—about 20 since 1975, including Une journée en taxi by Robert Ménard and La Dame en couleurs de Claude Jutra. But during this period, young Québec filmmakers started to offer him roles that especially suited him, in films such as Louis Bélanger’s Gaz bar blues (2003) and Le Génie du crime (2006), Érik Canuel’s Le Survenant (2005), Stéphane Lapointe’s La Vie secrète des gens heureux (2006) and Patrice Sauvé’s Cheech (2006).
On television, Renaud has appeared in some 30 dramatic series and some 10 televised plays, such as Lance et Compte, Fortier and Le Cœur découvert. He has also played two Québec premiers: Paul Sauvé in the series Duplessis (1977) and Jean Lesage in René Lévesque (2004).
Renaud also served as a professor, head of the acting program and academic dean at the National Theatre School of Canada from 1984 to 2001.
