I said no to Denys Arcand.
Mariana Mazza was recently in the mix on the Party Pyjama podcast, hosted by Marina Bastarache and Maxime Gibeault, where she played along in a rapid-fire segment, answering a series of questions, some of them a bit spicier than usual.
Shoot your scoop
Did you catch anything? Discretion assured.
It happened during a segment of sharp questions when Marina asked Mariana to name a project that had been offered to her, that she had refused, or accepted, and that she later regretted taking.
“Hey, I’m very, very honest about this. I’ve never really talked about it… Denys Arcand asked me to be in his film The Decline of the Empire with Maripier Morin,” she reveals.
Here’s what motivated her decision!
“Then, I didn’t like the script. I said, This isn’t good. (…) It was two nights of shooting at Castor Lake, in the middle of the night. Right there, you’re done for. And I was supposed to play an Arab police officer, but the role wasn’t well written, and I thought: It’s over. I said no. I said no to Denys Arcand,” the guest explains.
“Do you regret it?” asks the host.
“Not at all. The film wasn’t good. I didn’t like that movie. I don’t think it was good, even though Maripier was great. The actors in it were very good. Honestly, the acting was solid, but the film itself wasn’t good,” Mazza answers bluntly.
“The last films he did aren’t good either… Denys Arcand is a legend—one of Quebec’s greatest—and he’s the only Canadian to have won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with The Barbarian Invasions; that’s incredible. He’ll always be a legend, but just because you’re a legend doesn’t mean everything you make is gold. It’s like Paul McCartney; I’d seen his stories: ‘Hey Paul, he’s like… 83 now.’ Yeah. Incredible energy. He hasn’t had a drop of water in days, the guy still commands a presence. Legend. But he didn’t sing as well as he used to. He sings like an 83-year-old. You can’t tell me he’s singing as well as in his youth. Stop kidding me,” she cites as an example.
Another Icon Is Also at the Heart of the Discussions
“Me, I’m not the kind of person who says: ‘He’s a legend.’ I respect the legend. Denys Arcand is a huge legend in Quebec—HUGE. But the last two films he made aren’t good… On the other hand, Denis Villeneuve… OH! WOW! He asked me… But I’m not good enough. I’d say: No, I’m not good. I don’t deserve you …,” Mazza says.
For context, the film pitched to Mariana, The Fall of the American Empire, released in 2018, featured Alexandre Landry, Maripier Morin, Rémi-Pierre Paquin, Pierre Curzi, and Louis Morissette.
The film follows Pierre-Paul, a highly educated package delivery guy (with a PhD in philosophy) who is stuck in a precarious job. One day he becomes a witness to a gangland hit linked to organized crime… and ends up with two million dollars in his possession. Rather than keeping the money or turning it in to the authorities, he tries to redistribute it in a “moral” way.
So what do you think of Mariana’s perspective? Do you agree with her, or did you find the film exceptionally good?
This content was created with the help of AI.
