Xavier Dolan

"My big, always and forever love, my creative soul mate @xavierdolan ♥️"

"Yes, I came from nowhere. All my life, I heard Stop daydreaming, Get over yourself, Youll never get there, Aim lower, Youll hurt yourself, from teachers, family, and friends."

"I dont have mom issues or dad issues. I think I have found peace about many things in my past. I have forgiven and asked to be forgiven."

"I come from a popular environment. I don’t have a deep knowledge of auteur cinema. My wish as a director has always been to make films that I would like to see in theaters."

"Nathalie Lévy: You directed Gaspard Ulliel in Its Only the End of the World, and you wrote an intense message after the news of his death... Xavier Dolan: It was really his light... the allure he had... He was someone who... I still cant talk about him... And I still cant accept... I dream of him at night... very often. Sometimes those dreams look cruel... or... hyper realistic. Some look so real... and when I wake up its so painful. Nathalie Lévy: What was so singular about Gaspard? Xavier Dolan: I saw lots of interviews with Gaspard when he died. And he was someone who loved words... and loved to think. Sometimes he looked up at the sky, before speaking. And yet all of his words were relevant, measured, cultivated... He was a literate man, and curious. He spoke well. And he spoke when he had to speak."

"Madame, I am addressing this letter to you without even knowing you, without knowing you well. Outside, behind my bedroom window in the woods where I have taken refuge, the snow twirls in the air. It is transfigured by the light of the sun and the wind persists in beating it into loose snow. Big conifers rise in front of me, covered with a very heavy white deposit. Winter is calm, all of a sudden, after a brutal start."

"I had already met him several times, quickly, but I discovered a fragile, touching, endearing person, far from this somewhat false idea of ​​rebellious, condescending, young man inflated with assurance. For Xavier, filming is a vital impetus, palpable on set. Nothing matters more than what happens in front of the camera. Hes someone who never gives up, doesnt back down from anything, just like his films."

"Hes very precise and since he’s also an actor himself, the communication between us was very fluid. He makes us want to give everything."

"Xavier and I are like soul mates. He wants to create a very intense and close-knit atmosphere on the set, and he has a very unique way of working. He will be talking to you while you’re shooting a scene or he will be playing music in the background to take you where he wants you to go with your performance."

"I couldnt help but think he would have hated this kind of elegy. He would have perceived a lack of elegance in this glorification. And he was very elegant. Because his career speaks for itself. Through the articles that praise him and all the roles that survive him. His talent, we still have it. And no one can take that away from us. Its the privilege of being famous and an actor of his light to be able to count on art to fade us into eternity while other important bereavements for some remain unknown to all or become so quickly evanescent. Its a whole world that cried for Gaspard... its a whole world that still mourns him."

"I chose to address this letter to you, Madame, because I did not know other than by telling you how much I admired and loved him. I didnt know how to pay him a real tribute. I think he would have liked to know that I wrote this letter while listening to a piece by Olafur Arnalds entitled "Tree"... "Larbre". He would have listened to it. Even better. We would have listened to it together, without excluding all those who loved him. His family, it seemed natural to me to write to you this evening. To you, whom I immediately thought of that morning. Because a mothers love is stronger than anything. I believe it. Stronger than life. Stronger than art itself. And certainly stronger than death."

"Im very much a hypochondriac, worried about dying, and not having enough time to work with the people I want to work with and being fulfilled as an actor."