Léane Labrèche-Dor is not in her first major role in the cinema. However, she has never inhabited the big screen as much as in My Mother’s Men, a film where she is omnipresent and stunningly natural.
Elsie, central character of the film My Mother’s Men, does not have time to acclimatize to the death of her mother that she must already leave on a mission. To respect the last wishes of the deceased, she must find her five ex-husbands and ask them to choose a place to scatter each a fifth of her ashes.
The young woman played by Léane Labrèche-Dor is not happy. She experiences this mission a bit like a new abandonment: her mother, played briefly by Anne-Marie Cadieux, bequeathed all her material possessions to her, but no kind words intended to appease her mourning.
My Mother’s Men follows Elsie on this curious journey to love.
It is quite easy to perceive that Léane Labrèche-Dor is happy with this film, when you have it in front of you. His pride has nothing to do with haughtiness. What motivates her to accept a role is not the visibility she gets from it, she explains, but the “material” that is presented to her and that she will have to defend.
“Whether it’s an important role, or even a leading role, is not a determining factor. Either way, it’s way down the list. Far behind cash! she jokes. And money is far behind questions like: am I going to learn something? Am I going to have fun? Do I have something to say? Is this role for me? »
The last question is crucial in his eyes. Léane Labrèche-Dor may have already shown that she can make people laugh or simply bring tears to tears, but she doesn’t think she can take on all the roles. “You have to have the humility to admit it if you think you’re not the right person to play a role,” she thinks.
The actress felt a closeness with Elsie. “I experienced this grief,” recalls the young actress, who lost her mother when she was still a teenager. “My mother didn’t marry five men, but I lived through this loss and I found it interesting to be able to put into this story a little of what I know of this situation. »
Art, from his point of view, is for that: to connect sensibilities. What she likes about her job, we guess, is that it nurtures her intellectually and emotionally. “I do this job because it allows me to learn endlessly. I was really a Hermione Granger in school: I was aiming for 100%. I liked that, the good grades. As an actress, I can aim for 100%, but I will never achieve it, she says. Sometimes I’m going to screw up, but constantly learning is trippy. »
One of the things that we feel very strongly in My Mother’s Men is the freedom the actors had to adapt the dialogues to their mouths. “Anik [Jean] worked a lot like that and Maryse [Latendresse] allowed a lot of freedom too. It was a consensus, ”says Léane Labrèche-Dor.
This kind of openness greatly appeals to the designer in her.
Although she is the daughter and granddaughter of an actor, Léane Labrèche-Dor did not always want to be an actress. Hermione Granger, to use the nickname she gives to the teenager that she was, wanted to study anthropology or art history. It wasn’t until she got to CEGEP, after spending her high school breaking scores, that she realized that extracurricular theater inspired her more than her classes…
She says she remains passionate about many things and is probably not done with school. She is still interested in anthropology and art history. She also likes the idea of becoming a translator. “Maybe I’m an eternal student,” she mused. Maybe being an actress is just a little detour in my journey…”