Two years after the release of her album Objets perdus, Evelyne Brochu swapped her acting career for that of a singer. Ready to hit the roads of Quebec this fall, the mother of three talks about her shows and gives us some news.
After having postponed her tour many times because of the pandemic, Evelyne Brochu is thrilled to finally be able to bring the songs from her first album to the stage. “In the last year, I sometimes had the impression that this dream would not come true. Today, I am so happy to know that it will finally come true! I can’t wait to hit the road with five experienced musician friends, including Félix Dyotte, who is the genius behind my album. Without him, this musical adventure would not exist. I want to celebrate the great friendship that unites us on stage. We are currently working very hard to offer a show that will be both magical and enchanting.”
A BLOSSOMING FRIENDSHIP
Having been friends since they met in Saint-Laurent CEGEP in the late 1990s, Evelyne Brochu and singer-songwriter Félix Dyotte have also had the opportunity this year to work on something else. Indeed, the duo recently participated in the creation of a new song for the next season of Passe-Partout, which will air next winter on Télé-Québec. “It was a lot of fun to do that! I can’t say anything more, though, since the unveiling of the new Passe-Partout songs hasn’t been done yet. For the moment, Felix and I are still working on my second album. We don’t have a release date to announce yet, but it will definitely happen.”
CRAZY ABOUT HER CHILDREN
On a personal level, the performer of Maintenant ou jamais is perfectly happy with her boyfriend, Nicolas Schirmer, her son Laurier, who will be three years old in October, and her twins Camille and Matthias, born in November 2020. “I won’t hide the fact that everyday life with twins is a sport! It multiplies the challenges by two, but it also multiplies the love I have for them. Every time I go home, my heart raced at the thought of seeing my children again. I’m crazy about them!”
The proud mom doesn’t plan to be away from home for very long on her tour. “When I’m on stage, they’ll be sleeping, and the next day I’ll be back to them. I, for one, am looking forward to reconnecting with my artistic side. These parties will take me out of my daily life and my maternity leave. I actually have a big smile on my face when I look at my schedule for the fall.”
SEVEN MONTHS IN PARIS
Evelyne Brochu does not plan to continue her performance tour in 2022. “It is difficult for me to announce dates for next year because, as of January, I will move to Paris until July. There I will be shooting the French series PARIS POLICE 1905, which will be the sequel to PARIS POLICE 1900, currently broadcast on Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ARTV. This time we will meet the characters five years later. I can’t wait to see what the author is going to plunge us into and to find my playing partners, with whom I had become friends in 2019.” Recall that the actress plays the role of the courtesan and spy Marguerite Steinheil in this series.
The young mother also plans to take advantage of this filming experience in France to temporarily move to the City of Light with her children. “I’m confident that we’ll find a good way to combine all this. The fact that this shoot is spread out over a long period of time will allow me to enjoy Paris with my family. At the moment, I have no other projects, except for an American film in which I will be shooting next summer in Montreal. All I can reveal about this project is that it will be a comedy in which American actors and Quebec actors will work together.”
After starring in all three seasons of Trop, Evelyne Brochu is now one of the leads in Paris Police 1900, a major period series for which she filmed in France and that we will be able to see (in Quebec) very soon. But, for the moment, the sympathetic actress is on maternity leave after giving birth to twins a little over four months ago.
Evelyne, let’s first talk about your role as a mother with your twins. Is it going well?
Yes, very well, in fact. It’s funny, because I’ve already experienced maternity once (she has a boy, born in October 2018), and I was expecting double the intensity, but in the end it’s going well day to day. It’s very consuming, but when you love doing something in life, it’s not taxing. Once you accept the lack of sleep, there is no more mental space to be in anticipation; your brain is more in the moment.
Your children were born in November…
They were born on November 12, at 37 weeks. Usually, for twins, the doctor doesn’t let it go any further because one of the babies is often low on amniotic fluid. They are considered “at term”, although they are three weeks early. I am really happy because I was lucky enough to have a beautiful delivery and two healthy babies, Camille and Mathias, who arrived home 24 hours later. Twins are considered a risky pregnancy. There is always a part of oneself that hopes for the best. In my case, it went really well.
So it’s really a beautiful time with your kids.
Yes, it’s hard work, but I don’t live it as a hassle; I live it as little moments of love. You know, changing diapers is a time to look into their eyes, to tickle them. What I’m experiencing right now is amazing. I know it’s a short time. I know that in two seconds they will crawl, they will run, and I know very well how short this little bubble of newborns is. I focus on the beautiful things that won’t last long. I often wake up at night, but it’s to feed them. It’s cool though! I take full advantage of it.
“My children need me, and I want to devote myself to this stage of my life.”
You decided to extend your maternity leave…
Yes, I made that choice, and so did my boyfriend. He took a longer leave than the last time because we knew it was going to be a lot of work. I chose to put off work so we could get into a routine, and of course there’s my oldest - who isn’t that old either. They need me, and right now I want to focus on this stage of my life.
I guess you still have some work ahead of you.
There are small things on the horizon, a small film, a foreign production that will be shot this summer in Quebec. It will give me other experiences; at the same time, it will allow me to stay close to home.
Starting April 8, you will be able to watch the police series Paris Police 1900 on Tou.tv Extra. It’s a mega production, right?
It really is! The series cost 16 million euros, which I didn’t know when I was shooting. But when I arrived at the Italian Embassy and saw the carriages and the extras, I realized that it was a big production. Since I couldn’t go to France to have my measurements taken for the corset I was going to wear because I had work to do here, a costume girl came to Montreal to have the corset made to fit me. The shoes were handmade in Italy, the hats were incredible… There wasn’t a thing that wasn’t custom made. The makeup lady was from the Paris Opera, the hair lady learned from the best, and it was the biggest set I’ve seen. It was very impressive. Above all, we had time. Everyone had time to do what they wanted to do. The costume, makeup, and hair designers had days and days of testing, and we were out there trying on looks to figure out the hairstyles, the eyebrow silhouette… And the dress assigned to the character was specifically designed to make an effect.
Did you also take much time to shoot the scenes?
Yes, we did two or three scenes a day, and everything was pushed to the limit. Going all the way, and not feeling dizzy from the frenzy, is intoxicating for an actress. In the end, the way I was used to working on Quebec sets made me think that it lacked a beat, that we had too much time!
So, shooting this vintage series was an exciting experience…
For me, it was a journey, I was outside of the box, let’s say! I was in France, it was another thing, another way of working, and I was also elsewhere in time. It is thrilling for an actress, the way you have to hold yourself, the way you frame, the way you handle objects… There were also moments of humor. When you see the prefect announcing the arrival of the telephone and saying “Call the police!”, you realize that it was quite a novelty to call the police with the telephone in 1900! Playing in such a series, you also see how far women have come since that time when police techniques were born. My character was a modern woman who was friends with Émile Zola and Toulouse-Lautrec, but she didn’t have the right to vote, she didn’t have a bank account, and she wore a corset all day.
Your character, Marguerite Steinheil, is a woman who really existed. And her lover even died in her bed…
Her lover was Felix Faure, the president of the Republic, and this scene is the first in the series, the beginning of the story. Because she was the president’s mistress, she had a position in the world, she had a protector. But when he dies, she loses her protector and has to find a situation to survive and guarantee her daughter’s future, so she becomes a spy for the police. She will infiltrate anti-Semitic groups whose leaders really existed. In some episodes, there are speeches that people have really said, and that are bloodcurdling. When I saw the series, I thought, about one speech in particular, that it was totally twisted that the author wrote that. It was word for word exactly what one man had said in those anti-Semitic speeches.
So you play a strong woman who is bound to get her way!
She is a strong woman, a woman of head, a modern woman, and she uses every means available at the time, that is to go through men, to get what she wants.
Is there any plan for a sequel to this series?
Yes, a second season is being planned and will be filmed next year. I was told that it would be filmed in January 2022. That’s perfect, because it gives me time to be a mom.
The series Trop ended after three seasons. Was it much of a heartbreak?
I would say that some series endings were harder than others. We know that we won’t find certain friendships again because we meet these people at work, whereas for Trop I made a gang that will last. I still see Virginie Fortin, and I’m still in contact with the author, Marie-Andrée Labbé, and Alice Pascual, who is my true friend in life. There’s a kind of nostalgia for the fun we had getting together, seeing each other often, and shooting a show we loved. At least the bonds that you feel when you watch the show remain in your life, you can take comfort in that.
The year 2022 will be quite busy for you, with the possible shooting of the series in France. Would you like, for example, to star in another series for two or three years?
I’m open to anything; that’s the way I work. I go on my own as my heart desires, as my feelings. When something arrives in front of me, I will seriously consider it, I don’t have a five-year plan, I don’t have a strategy. I told myself I wouldn’t work until May, and that makes me make some choices, but I don’t have anything until August, which is great. As it stands now, I figure if I get something wonderful, that’s good. If not, it’s just as great to have time for my family.
*Paris Police 1900 will be available on Tou.tv Extra starting April 8. All three seasons of Trop are also available on the platform.
Five things you know and the one you don’t (until you do)
FIRST.
She touches you and you light on fire. Your wrist blazes where her fingers meet your skin. The burns don’t show, but it’s hard to breathe with ash in your lungs. It’s so hard to breathe. You’re suffocating daily.
SECOND.
It hurts to watch her. She shines. She’s brighter than the sun, she’s too beautiful for your eyes. it’s hard to look at her. It’s even harder to look away from her. You’re going blind.
THIRD.
Your ears are tuned to her voice. You could pick her out in a sea of thousands. Her voice makes pretty singers who sing pretty songs sound dull. Her voice makes everything else sound ugly.
FOURTH.
The color of her eyes is beautiful enough to drown in. She is turning you into a clichéd love-wrecked being. You’re drowning, always sinking. Down, down, down.
FIFTH.
You know her. You love her. Through a thousand lifetimes, across millions of stars, you’d find her, you’d never leave her. You love her, till death do you part.
SIXTH.
She loves you, too.
Yesterday was the anniversary of Orphan Black premiere (back in 2013) and I’m remembering this post ❤️
“… I almost died… I had some kind of a near death experience, and it was so easy i could’ve just slipped away. Then I had a vision of you… I came back for you.“ Cosima
Check out our new Orphan Black fan art project LEDArt This is a collaboration project between @les-boobs (the art) and @ybsl(the brain).
Hello, Donnie! Join your sestras Maggie and V for a deep-dive into Orphan Black (2013-2017), because they finally finished the entire show. Maggie weighs in on Sarah Manning’s parenting skills, V has feelings about the Castor clones, and unfortunately both of them are probably the most like Alison. Plus, the fandoms of the week are on theme as both Maggie and V recommend some talented lady DIYers.
This Episode Covers…
fandom • fanfiction • orphan black (2013-2017) • tatiana maslany • michiel huisman • sarah manning • alison hendrix • cosima niehaus • rachel duncan • helena • donnie hendrix • kristian bruun • felix dawkins • art bell • cophine • the castor clones • proletheans • krystal goderitch • the kroll show • publizzity • xomckenna • ariel bissett • thedaintysquid (kayla stroup) • the curious creations of christine mcconnell (2018)
LISTENandSUBSCRIBE wherever you get your podcasts!
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