At the climax of Sophie Dupuis’s new film, Solo, Simon, a young queer man and working drag queen in Montreal, played by an affecting Théodore Pellerin, has just reemerged from a toxic, all-consuming relationship and had a turbulent reunion with his estranged mother.
His drag has changed too. When Simon and his dominating boyfriend, Oliver (Félix Maritaud), become a double act, the former finds himself lost in the shadow of the latter. As the film progresses, the audience sees Simon fall in love with Félix and marvel over his mother, an opera diva who has returned to Montreal after years away touring, while also slowly falling out of love and out of touch with himself. The reckoning that follows sees Simon begin to find joy in his drag persona once again and be reminded, as his sister Maude puts it, that “all of her power and strength, it comes from you.”
Pellerin also stars in Hulu’s Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, out on Friday, as the late designer’s longtime partner, Jacques de Bascher, who died from AIDS in 1989. The show chronicles the rise of Lagerfeld (Daniel Brühl) as his relationship with de Bascher becomes increasingly complex. It’s a mere coincidence that Pellerin has found himself performing two complicated gay relationships onscreen this year—to say nothing of the fact that de Bascher, a self-mythologizing dandy, was himself performing a kind of drag in 1970s Paris.
Pellerin plays both characters with the understanding and nuance that they deserve as layered queer people, and he recently spoke to Vogue about them.
Vogue: What was the process of making Solo like?
Théodore Pellerin: It was a long process. Sophie [Dupuis] and I have known each other for almost 10 years now, since we did our first film [2018’s Family First]. She started telling me about the idea of Solo I think two years before we started shooting. We started physical work in September and then started shooting in February, so it was me trying to get the ball rolling and seeing if I was able to walk in heels and a lot of table work and rehearsal, which is how Sophie likes to work with her actors. She brings everyone together, and there’s almost a theater-like process.
I’m curious about the physicality of it all. Had you done anything remotely near drag before?
I’ve been saying that I haven’t done drag before, but it’s not true because I realized that when I was in high school, I played a drag queen in a play we wrote as teens. Of course, it was completely different, but that was my first drag experience, per se. I don’t have a past as a drag queen.
Well, you have a future. I’m curious about your research. Did you watch Drag Race beforehand, or where did you look for inspiration?
I started watching Drag Race when I knew that the film was coming together, and then Sophie and I started going to Mado in Montreal, the famous bar. Sophie was fascinated by drag, and I had an idea of what kind of drag I would more organically be able to do, which persona I’d feel myself in. But I was following what Sophie wanted and what was needed for the part. It also depended on who was going to play Oliver and what their drag would be like. My work, I think, was more about learning to get comfortable with femininity and getting to a place where I felt that that extreme or satirical femininity was a place where I felt at my best because that’s how these characters feel: On the stage in drag is where you are completely allowed to shine and be your most powerful. I needed to feel like I was not just playing a version of it but allowing myself to open up and enjoy it and having no shame. It was a completely liberating experience.
What’s interesting about the film and the drag element of it is that it’s less about the performance and more about the transformation. Simon undergoes an important emotional journey that is manifested in his drag but is not just about it. Drag has become so popular in culture, and that has, I think, made people see queens as this entity that exists in the context of performance, but there’s people behind that, which is what the film puts at its forefront.
Yes. The film is not only about drag; it’s a toxic relationship and a family story. The heart of it really lies somewhere else, so my work was also a lot of that. I think that what interested Sophie was bringing these two worlds together. They’re not separated, necessarily, but I think they were two ideas she wanted to explore. In the relationship we see the evolution of someone falling apart and being disintegrated bit by bit, but parallel to that we see him as someone who shines in drag and onstage, and that was, to her, an attractive parallel. [Simon] is so not in touch with himself that he doesn’t realize how his relationship with his mother is affecting him or that it’s extremely toxic, as is his romance, so he is not allowing himself to see these things and continues to, without sounding too cliché, mask it off with makeup and drag. The resolution we hopefully reach is that he is able to see things with a bit more clarity, which is what puts him on track to be a better artist. It made sense for all of it to happen together.
What was it like to perform a performer? Do you start with Simon and go into the drag or the other way around?
It was important to understand Simon before defining the drag aspect. I didn’t see it as performing as someone who performs, to be honest—more building a character and an extension of him. Finding your drag takes years and such huge work, and it really is then an extension of the artist and performer. It’s something extremely personal you play with, so you have to know yourself and how to play with what you portray. Doing it at a high level is so incredibly impressive to me. You could not have the drag persona without knowing who Simon is for that reason. His drag comes from him.
.jpg)
I do have to ask about Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, in which you play Jacques de Bascher. As you can imagine we are very excited about it here at Vogue.
Yes, that’s why I’m here in Paris! We’re starting the press for it. I’m excited about it. We worked so hard on this. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something. Jacques de Bascher really is such a fascinating character—such an icon of the night, a provocateur and dandy, and an angel and demon. I just adore him, and I loved playing him, and I love Daniel [Brühl]. I’m just excited for people to see it, and I hope they like it.
De Bascher is such a mysterious figure. A lot of people think they know about him, but there’s not much out there.
He was also very masterful at hiding himself and creating stories that he wanted out there about him, but then hiding others. Everybody I talked to about Jacques, they were all telling me different things about [his and Lagerfeld’s] relationship and how they were. It was very confusing but also very exciting because then it feels like everything is possible. The reality is that probably all these things were coexisting, all a little bit true and a little bit false.
It’s interesting to place him alongside this conversation about drag because there is this idea of self-invention around him: this performance of the dandy and the reality of him, which we will never really know. So you spoke to some people—how else did you research?
Yes, exactly. Have you read The Beautiful Fall by Alicia Drake? It’s an amazing, extraordinary book about all those characters and that world in the Paris of the ’70s and ’80s. I read it in English, but I heard that in the French version, Karl put a lot of effort into taking out anecdotes about him and Jacques, so they’re different books. What a character. The way in which they controlled their narratives in that sense is fascinating, and it made a good story to be a part of.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
Solo is playing in US theaters now and will be available digitally on June 25.
