Suzanne Clément

Suzanne Clément, actor (born 12 May 1969). A graduate of the Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Montréal (1993), and trained at the Stanislavsky Summer School (Cambridge, US), Clément made her stage debut in 1993 as Esmeralda in Le Bossu de Notre-Dame, directed by Guy Freixe at the National Arts Centre French Theatre. She tried her hand at both burlesque comedy (Tizoune, Montréal, et les autres with the Théâtre du Petit Chaplin, 1995, in the role of Manda Parent) and the classics (L'Avare, Théâtre ProFusion/Nouvelle Compagnie Théâtrale, 1995). In 1997, she appeared with the Compagnie Jean-Duceppe in the revival of C'était avant la guerre à l'Anse-à-Gilles by Marie Laberge, directed by Monique Duceppe, who in 2002 offered her a role in Fleurs d'acier (Steel Magnolias) by American playwright Robert Harling that went on tour the following season. It was again with the Jean-Duceppe company that Serge DENONCOURT directed her in Eduardo De Filippo's La Grande Magia (1998), and this proved a decisive encounter for the young actress, who developed a special relationship with the Théâtre de l'Opsis, co-founded by Denoncourt.

This ongoing collaboration with l'Opsis marked the character of Nina in Je suis une mouette (non ce n'est pas ça) based on Chekhov's The Seagull (a coproduction with the THÉÂTRE DE QUAT'SOUS, 1999), a Denoncourt production that toured in Québec and Europe. Suzanne Clément again kept company with Chekhov as Ania in La Cerisaie (a coproduction with the TNM, 2000), directed by Denoncourt, and as Irina in Les Trois Sœurs (2001), staged by Luce Pelletier and Denis Bernard. In 2004, Luce Pelletier directed her in Pierre-Yves Lemieux's La Sirène et le Harpon. Of particular note and among Clément's greatest theatre presentations was her visceral and heartfelt performance as the vengeful daughter in the title role of Elektra by Hugo Von Hofmannsthal (2004).

In 2005, Clément portrayed Véra, the seductive rebel mother in Jouliks by Marie-Christine Lê-Huu, directed by Robert Bellefeuille at the THÉÂTRE D'AUJOURD'HUI. If the actress then appeared to distance herself from the theatre, she nevertheless increased her roles on the large and small screens. She appeared on television in Sous le signe du lion (1997, 1999) and Cover Girl (2004-2005), and she has certainly been associated with the title role in the TV series Les Hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin, presented on Radio-Canada from 2006 to 2009. The character of the young professional single parent with the highly sentimental trials and tribulations received several nominations at the Gala Artis and two prix Gémeaux.

Clément made her first film appearance in Robert LEPAGE's Le Confessionnal (1995). She was given substantial roles in Luc Picard's L'Audition (2005), and Fernand Dansereau's La Brunante (2007), where she appeared alongside Monique MERCURE as an insignificant young woman who becomes the improbable companion of a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She won best supporting actress in a Canadian film at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards for C'est pas moi, je le jure! by Philippe Falardeau (2008) for a remarkably intense and truthful performance as a young mother yearning for freedom who abandons her family to live her own life.