Eli ROY
Actor

Eli received a grant to help him study at the Théâtre National de Bretagne.

What is your artistic background?
I started theatre at a workshop in high school when I was 12 years old. I loved it right away and tried to follow all the theatre options and specialties that were offered to me in my schooling to continue this practice. After a literary Baccalauréat and Hypokhâgne class specializing in theatre, I went on to study for a degree in Modern French.  Faced with the foggy vagueness that hovered over my chosen field of literature, my dissatisfaction with the university and my burning desire for theatre, which was only growing, I decided to immerse myself in a theatrical training. So, happily I was accepted at the Bordeaux Conservatory for one year of training. There I was finally able to tap into my curiosity and artistic creativity and mix it with my unquenchable need for bodily expression. It was a great liberation to be able to focus on this practice intensively and it allowed me to consider a continuation at graduate school for acting. I therefore decided to invest all my energy and motivation in preparing for the competitive exams to enter a drama school. The competitive examination is very particular and intense, it really formed me while I was no longer in theatrical training; and I was accepted, to my great joy, by the Théâtre National de Bretagne in September 2021. 

How do you view your profession today?As a young drama student, my view of the profession is quite naive. Even though it is sometimes a thankless and often difficult or even risky place for actors, I know above all that it will be my place to exist with the optimum intensity.  It's what I've always dreamed of since my first theatre show in high school and it continues to drive me today because the acting profession carries the passion of all the people who have thrown themselves into it. It is a magical profession, that allows you to live intensely while being aware of the fleetingness of these moments lived. It also seems to me that the theatre remains an important place for a certain sensory reality, as today the body is lost in the speed of new technologies. If this ancient art that comes to us from Antiquity continues to fascinate young people, it is because it seems to me that its necessity is inherent and that there is an inseparable link with life in the theatre.  Theatre as a performing art is the dream place of reality and I have chosen it to carry voices and dreams, to show the realities of our present and share my fears and desires for our future.

How do you see yourself in five years? in 10 years?

I have a lot of trouble projecting myself into the future, mostly for political and climatic reasons, and in light of these last two years the future seems even more uncertain.  However, it seems to me that I will have learned a lot by leaving the TNB school and I will have changed a lot. I think I will try to accomplish as best I can the theatre projects that seem to me to be in the right place for the present place in which we stand. I will try to transmit and share this art as much as possible as it was transmitted to me. I have no idea how my reasons for being an actor will evolve, but I think I will continue to act as long as I need to express myself, to reflect on the world around us, to make people dream, to free imaginations, to give hope, to introduce people to art and theatre, to learn to be oneself, to create and live. So, there is a good chance that I will keep going for a long time!

This interview was conducted in 2021
Photography credit: Julie Glassberg