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Interview made by Lorent Boyer during the special broadcast of Notre Dame de Paris (on M6 –1999) in the church of St Julien-le-Pauvre in Paris.

LB: Daniel Lavoie, you are well-established here in the church of St. Julien-le-Pauvre, the oldest church in Paris. I’m going to say you are a bit “at home”.
DL: (laughs) One can’t truly say I’m “at home” but, all the same, it’s true that I know the churches well.

LB: Who was it who tried to tempt you the more with the role (of Frollo): Richard Cocciante or Luc Plamondon?
DL: It was Luc. At Christmas two years ago, I was on the phone to Luc and he asked if I would be the priest and I said to him that my mother always wanted me to be a priest, but what you’re asking me surprises me a bit. I did not know that, when he was preparing Notre Dame de Paris, he had had me in mind all the while to play Frollo. I said “indeed, I’m surprised”. He said “all the people I’ve spoken to about it have said, oh, what a good idea!” And I thought that I radiated a priestly aura or something else without really knowing, because no one seemed surprised that I was suggested for the role of the priest.

LB: Did you ever feel the need to be a priest in real life?
DL: No, I never wanted to be a priest, but I was brought up in a village where religion was very important and I was a choirboy for years and all that …. I had a classical education with the Jesuits etc. I know priests well, even if I never wanted to be a priest.

LB: Then, this role in Notre Dame de Paris, Frollo, he is unbelievable, he is violent, he is unpleasant …
DL: He is nasty, he is everything that one wants to hate but, at the same time, he resembles us so much that finally one finds him a bit likeable … I think.

LB: Yes, a bit …
DL: Yes, I want to! It’s this that I try to do each evening. I find it almost unbearable to be completely nasty. It seems to me that he is a bit too much of a caricature. I wanted to add a little grey in his character and make him a bit more moving and human.

LB: Daniel Lavoie playing the role of the nasty one, what a surprise!
DL: Oh yes … that’s fine, no? Apparently I’m very nasty. Every evening people tell me “I hate you for two hours”. So long as it’s only for two hours that’s ok.

LB: Did this make you laugh when you saw yourself like this?
DL: It was this which scared me. I admit I was a bit traumatised to have to be nasty every night…

LB: (Talking about the moment in the show when Frollo confesses to Esmeralda, who is in the cage, that he loves her) Esmeralda is in the cage. You are in front of it and there is that unbelievable note when you are almost at the top of your voice and she goes backwards inside and you force the note even higher …
DL: It’s fabulous. It’s the moment where Frollo breaks up, where he confesses to Esmeralda that he loves her. It’s really good. It’s truly the moment when everything is knocked off balance on that note there. This section overbalances because Frollo changes from nasty to a man obsessed, who confesses his love and it takes all his courage to do it… It’s the moment I adore, I love it most of all in the whole show!

LB: Yes, it’s very tense!
DL: I know that I make everyone’s hair stand on end with this note and, truly, every evening I give it my best. Each evening I try to go the extra mile.

LB: The French public discovered you in 1984 with “Ils s’aiment”.
DL: Ils s’aiment was amazing at that time in which I made it and then I didn’t know how to rekindle this craze and this madness and there was my downfall.

LB: How did you regain success at this stage, just as strongly, 10 years later?
DL: The living was too easy, it was too pleasant. The first time I was a novice, I didn’t know much. I didn’t really know how to live. I was afraid of everything. I didn’t know where I was going …. I had a lot of problems adapting myself to this huge success that I went under. I fell very fast … it was a tidal wave that story. This time, here, I was ready. I didn’t have the same obsessive fears.