It’s a snowy evening in Amsterdam, and I imagine Montreal isn’t much warmer, Juliette Gariépy answers my call, curled up on her couch, twirling her copper locks between her fingers. She’s anything but idle, still buzzing from her first TIFF experience with Mile End Kicks. Juliette Gariépy is an actress and a Concordia University graduate who has now spent well over a decade enchanting us through Canadian film and TV, appearing in several Quebec series. This past year has been a whirlwind, with Juliette doing it all, everywhere, all at once, by starring in Jaume Collet-Sera’s new thriller Play Dead, shot in Australia and a theatre play at Espace GO. Talk about booked and busy. Gariépy opens up about these experiences, her relationship to acting (mediated by memes) as well as her favourite films, the Montreal indie scene, and her take on “method acting.”
Photography OCEANE AUCLAIR
Talent JULIETTE GARIEPY
Interviewer VERONICA TLAPANCO SZABO
Stylist KELLY ANN PANAGAKOS
Make up artist ALEXANDRA GAVRILESCU
Hair stylist CAMILLE LAPOINTE
Nail artist ALEXA DONY
Light tech MELODIE DERDERIAN
Assistant RAPHAELE SOHIER
Studio MERCREDI STUDIO
There’s no doubt she’s on a career-defining streak, and that sparkle in her eyes says it all. This shoot is just a small testament to that, and it was an absolute joy. All thanks to the talented photographer Océane Auclair, a good friend of ours who brought us together for this chat! Having been travelling between Paris and Montreal, Océane’s return to their “little Montreal”, Gariépy mentions, felt like a truly lucky moment, giving them the chance to do some “fun and crazy things together.” It set the perfect tone for our conversation, which kicked off with “I’ve been filming a TV show for the last three months, with no control over my hair or makeup, and now I finally get to step into my body, which I’d missed”, Gariépy reflects.
Speaking of stepping into your body, you were on one of the best-dressed lists for the Toronto International Film Festival. How was that experience for you?
My first time attending TIFF was crazy, it’s such a special festival that keeps growing bigger every year. I was really amazed by the number of A-list actors, and being part of it, too, was so fun. I also had writing on my dress, “My body is a machine that turns my film career into my whole personality.” I really wanted something that would pop on the red carpet.
And it did! Can you tell us more about the dress?
It was inspired by a meme I saw on a page of film crew jokes. I wanted to pull a little stunt for myself because I’m just starting to work on bigger projects, and I wanted to make an impression. Adding the large text made it an immediate eye-catcher. In this line of work, it’s become so normal to be waiting on a call for a job every week or showing up at an event trying to talk to the right people and be “cool enough.” It’s not just clocking in and out; the job is omnipresent. Of course, it’s different for every department, but everyone wants to work with their friends, which makes sense because the job is high-maintenance. There’s a lot of tension on set, it’s natural to want to be around people you love.
Is it almost as though your personality becomes your business card in a way?
Yes, and you always have to consider that everything you post contributes to how you’re perceived.
I like to add a meme to my feed to tone down the narcissism and show that it’s not all that serious. I love a good doomscrolling session in search of memes and screenshotting them. I also have my own meme page that I try to work on as much as possible.
Oooh fun! Is it anonymous, or can you tell us the username?
It is anonymous. I thought about telling you, but then I felt like I won’t have that much liberty, and I want to preserve that outlet.
We’ll keep an eye out for memes that sound like you. Is there any other beauty habit or styling choice that feels very you?
In my day-to-day, I just dress warm because it’s cold out here, but I do love a good heel. I like asking for help while dressing and collaborating with designers, paying them for their work, because that’s really where it starts. Wearing someone’s pieces creates a relationship, and I actually enjoy the feeling of being taken care of. I don’t feel like I have a very fixed vision of fashion myself. Of course, there’s the writing on the dress, which was my first time getting involved in that way. But overall, I love trusting creatives and what they bring to the table and letting them work their vision.
Still on the topic of TIFF, your upcoming film Mile End Kicks is super exciting. Did you already have any ties to the Montreal indie music scene prior, or was it something you discovered along with the project?
I was so young during the proper indie 2010s, but I remember looking at my cousins and thinking they were so cool because they had the owl necklace. Of course, I grew up in Mile End and not that long ago, I was immersed in the music scene by going out a lot, especially on the more Anglo side of Montreal. Where you have a lot of people coming in wanting to do music from Toronto and other places in the country. It’s been a long time since I’ve really stepped back into that world, but I remember it vividly, the smells, the men, the nights, everything. Mile End Kicks is about a girl from Toronto who comes to Montreal to write a book. She wants to start over, make friends, fall in love, and find herself. And Montreal is perfect for that; it’s very easy to connect with others here. But you can also very easily get lost in that party loop. I think it’s important to realise how, as women, especially when we’re younger, wanting to be seen and wanting to be part of that “cool kid” scene, it’s almost too easy to get lost in there. I definitely experienced that myself, so that’s how I connected to the story.
What kind of music do you listen to?
My most listened to artist is Jul, he’s French. He really pumps up my dopamine. I think that’s why I keep coming back to it.
You have taste! What’s your Letterboxd top four?
The first one is called Grey Gardens, it’s an old documentary about these two women living in the Hamptons, in this really old house that’s falling apart. The women were somehow connected to the Jackie Kennedy family but then rejected, so all they had left was this Hamptons house. They kept living there for years with tons of cats, and they’re… not okay, they are hoarders, and they are constantly fighting. It’s really special and really weird. One of the characters has lost her hair, so she started wearing all these headpieces, and became a fashion icon in a way. Next, I have La Nuit Américaine by François Truffaut. I love me some Truffaut! The title refers to the technique used to shoot at night during the day by putting a blueish filter on the camera. It centres on this fictional film crew, and it’s full of clownery, foolery and unseriousness. Howl’s Moving Castle by Miyazaki, for the music and everything, it’s a masterpiece and then the last one is Zola by Janicza Bravo. It’s inspired by a real Twitter thread, which I really love. I think it’s hard to make a good film about sex work, especially if you’re a man, or if you don’t really understand that world. But because this one is rooted in a real story, it comes across as so genuine. At times, it almost feels like a horror film, but it’s beautiful.
It’s safe to assume you’re a frequent cinema goer. Is there any cinema in the world that holds a special place for you?
Thank you, honestly, I’ll go anywhere a good film is playing, but I really love supporting smaller cinemas, especially French-Canadian ones. In Canada, there’s such a divide between Anglo cinemas and French ones, and the French theatres are often smaller, barely holding on. I think it’s important to show up for them. If I had to pick one truly special place, it would be the big amphitheatre at Concordia University downtown. That’s where I studied, where I discovered so many films I never would’ve seen otherwise. It’s also where we premiered Red Rooms, which made it really special.
Can you walk us through your journey up until that Red Rooms screening?
I grew up here in Québec, and I wanted to act as soon as I knew what it was. As a kid, I liked to dance, to sing all the time, and to do little shows with my cousin. I feel like a lot of people want to be actors, and it’s a good thing, to just practice being in your body for one second. That’s healthy. Acting is healthy, I think. I did some theatre in high school. As a teenager, you need that little something that makes you feel alive, that makes you feel like you’re on some kind of track toward knowing yourself. I was young, auditioning, and my parents were like, “You’re a kid. You don’t need to work right now. Just have fun, and we’ll see.” And honestly, I’m glad they did that.
My mom eventually gave in and helped me sign with an agency. I did some commercial work, and then I started acting in small French-Québec TV shows. Later, I studied film production at university. I really liked documentaries, and I’ve always wanted to be on the other side too. I never went to theatre school, but I took these basic theatre classes, and I still rely on them today. I learned basic things like breathing, positioning your body, and being open and ready. I remember being in those theatre classes and crying, because it’s so hard to just look straight into someone’s eyes. Not enough people do that. Even now, when I have to cry in a scene or do something really intense on set, I’m always like, How did I even do this last time? It’s always the same thing: you feel awkward and let that be. Let everything
that you are be there. And three years ago, I kind of hit that spot with Red Rooms, which was the best thing I could’ve asked for.
Congratulations on all the wins for Red Rooms! How did it feel to see the film receive so much recognition?
I was nervous about how the film would be received. But I think people understood that the point was critique, especially of that detached, almost casual way violence gets normalised. It’s a film about my character becoming obsessed with this serial killer, tracking him, knowing everything about him, almost like a fan. And I was afraid it would be read as “oh great, we’re romanticising violent men again.” But that’s not what we’re doing at all, it’s actually the opposite. The film deliberately refuses to centre him. We focus on the victims, the families, the people who surround him, and the ones who insist on seeing him as some kind of genius. They’re not geniuses. They’re just killers. Full stop.
I’m really frustrated with true crime culture. There’s something deeply morbid about it, the way violence gets packaged as entertainment. Red Rooms steps right into that uncomfortable space, questioning what we think is morally acceptable to consume online. And now, with AI expanding those possibilities even further, it becomes genuinely scary.
For this film specifically, how did you prepare for the role of Kelly-Anne?
The preparation I did was to try to understand what happens in the brains of people who constantly need more to feel entertained. Because at some level, we’re all addicted to dopamine now, on our phones, scrolling, stuck in these loops where it’s hard to stop. What really interested me was that shift, how someone goes from casually being on their phone to consuming videos of real people dying. How does that escalation happen? There are a lot of reasons for it, but it’s very dark. Another part of my preparation was learning the sport she practices, squash. I really wanted my body to carry that obsession, too. Squash is intense, and you can play it completely alone, inside this glass box. That isolation felt important because it mirrors her inner state.
It is conceptually quite a niche and strange form of exercise.
It kind of reminded me of how algorithms work, how you throw the ball, and then you just wait for it to come back at you harder.
When portraying such fractured and complex protagonists, there’s often a lot of talk around method acting. What was your approach?
I recently heard Kristen Stewart talk about how most method actors are men. And yes, I kind of believe that, which is funny, because acting is such a vulnerable thing to do. I feel like men are often not comfortable with vulnerability, so they compensate by taking up more space, turning it into something extreme. It becomes this thing where they have to be the character every day of their lives. But honestly, having to step into a character every single morning feels like a greater accomplishment to me. Staying in it all the time, being an asshole to everyone for three months, I don’t buy that as depth.
I get that sometimes you work with the body. Like, if you’re playing someone who’s been stuck in a cave for weeks, maybe you eat less, you stay a bit hungry, that can be interesting. But there’s a line. If you’re hungry, eat. I also really try not to bring real-life trauma into it. I’m not going to think about my dead grandmother just to cry. Sometimes people do that because they’re under pressure, where you have to cry in that moment, so you go to the easiest, most violent emotional place you know. But at that point… is that even acting anymore? That’s why I really believe the crew matters. Good people, good collaborators, a safe set, that’s what actually makes a great performance
What would you say is your ultimate dream role to play?
I just finished watching I Love LA, and I’d definitely love to do more comedy in that vein. One role I’ve wanted for so long is a rapper… but a really bad one, a SoundCloud type. There aren’t a ton of roles like that, but I want to play someone who’s blind to all the cues, who thinks they’re great when they’re not. I’m just a little scared I won’t get cast as those kinds of roles.
From all the roles that you have played, do you remember the largest number of lines you’ve ever had to memorise?
I did my first theatre play this summer, which I’d never really done before, so probably that. I had to talk a lot, for really long stretches of time, which was really intense. I even had dreams where I’d come to the theatre and completely forgot my lines, running away from the stage. At the same time, it was really special to have that responsibility, because all your mates are depending on you. What we did in the show was mostly monologues, which made it kind of manageable. You’re waiting for your friend to finish, and if they don’t, it’s okay, you can still go on.
Lastly, is there anything you’re manifesting at the moment?
There would be so much to fix on this earth, so many people to free. I want so much more peace, and I want the people of Gaza to be free. Though what I could be manifesting right now… is fewer phones. I’m tired of just holding my phone all the time, it even hurts my pinky. I want concerts, gatherings, and being together, just for a minute.
