page_title: Rock Paper Scissors (2013 film)
section_title: Writing and casting
hierarchical_section_title: Rock Paper Scissors (2013 film) / Production / Writing and casting
caption_attribution_description: Roy Dupuis at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
context_page_description: Rock Paper Scissors is a 2013 Canadian thriller film from Québec directed by Yan Lanouette Turgeon, which he co-wrote with André Gulluni. The third film to be produced by Camera Oscura, producer Christine Falco described it as a work of hyperlink cinema. Lanouette Turgeon's debut feature is the story of three men—Boucane, Lorenzo, and Vincent —whose lives are brought together through a strange sequence of events.
  The film features music by composer and performer Ramachandra Borcar.
context_section_description: The director and his co-writer began working on Rock Paper Scissors after they had produced a pair of successful short films, Papillons noirs and Le revenant, after which Gulluni approached Lanouette Turgeon with a title and an idea for three different films which would be linked by their supporting characters; they quickly realized they could make a single feature if they worked hard enough on the script. They had to find something which would connect the three main characters, which was "easier said than done", as the entire process took them eight years with the re-writes.
  The idea for the Aboriginal story was occurred shortly after Lanouette Turgeon met Algonquin rapper Samian at a film festival in France in 2005. The character was inspired directly from his own life: like Boucane, Samian left the First Nations reserve of Pikogan (near Amos) with a sack on his back to try his luck in Montréal, working regular jobs before making his name in music. Samian, who had to lose thirty pounds for the role (and some five years), only found out four years after the meeting that Lanouette Turgeon had effectively written a role based on his life. He agreed that Boucane, which is his first acting role, is a lot like him, and like many young Aboriginals who go to Montréal to start a new life, and find it is not easy.
  To find an Italian francophone actor who was also the right age to play Lorenzo, the team went to France and held auditions, there being relatively few such actors in Québec. When veteran Italian stage and film actor Remo Girone auditioned for the part, Lanouette Turgeon knew immediately he had found the right actor; then, Girone's wife, Victoria Zinny, came in carrying a few DVDs of Girone's previous films, and the director asked if they would mind doing a screen test together. It "gave him the shivers" (frissons) to see them bringing his characters to life. The rest of his team felt the same.
  Roy Dupuis was on board as soon as he had read the script. He liked the idea of the film starting with an Aboriginal in the  "Grand Nord" moving slowly towards the cosmopolitan city of Montréal where everyone is just trying to get by. Dupuis considers the film daring and genuinely poetic.
  In writing the story of Boucane and his trip with Normand, Lanouette Turgeon immediately thought of Roger Léger to play him. Léger called it a great and nuanced character.
  Despite her long acting career, Rock Paper Scissors marked the first appearance by Marie-Hélène Thibault in a feature film. Her scenes as Beverley were shot in three days.
caption: Roy Dupuis
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