“I would never have done this job if I hadn’t come here. Never ! », insists Anglesh Major as he enters the Marie-Victorin CEGEP, in Montreal North.
In high school, drama was a vacation class for his friends, but for him, it was an awakening. “I pretended to say that it was boring like everyone else, but deep down, I was tripping. »
However, Anglesh Major was a quiet boy on the benches of Louis-Riel high school. “The kind of student you don’t notice. »
Despite his introverted nature, the young man opted for the theater option in the Arts, Letters and Communication program at Cégep Marie-Victorin. “When I came here, I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t feel like I belonged,” he says.
After a year, Anglesh thought about giving up, but professor and program manager Pierre Brodeur did everything to stop him. The man who would become his mentor made him understand that there were other forms of theater than that with a capital T. “He made me understand that theater is about being human, that it is is to be yourself. I owe him a lot. »
A few weeks before our interview, Anglesh Major gave a conference at Cégep Marie-Victorin. He touched people by telling how his father reacted when he told him he wanted to go on stage.
“Son, I messed up. »
Anglesh instead told his father of the luck and range of opportunities he had given him by having him immigrate from Haiti at age 3: “You gave me the greatest gift in the world and let me unpack it. »
Anglesh grew up far from his mother who remained in Haiti. After multiple requests from her son, she was finally able to come and join him in Montreal last summer. Result: happiness, but also a lot of adaptation to a new life.
Feeling at home, in the right place, can take time and his son knows this.
After CEGEP, Anglesh Major moved to the CEGEP de Saint-Hyacinthe Theater School before being removed from the cohort. A failure that did not quench his thirst for acting, so much so that he joined the ranks of the UQAM Theater School.
Anglesh Major remembers one time in particular when he felt embarrassed doing a reading by Michel Tremblay. During his training, he even had coaching to camouflage his Creole accent. But why feel like you have to be someone else?
In 2017, Anglesh Major joined, at the request of his former teacher Luce Pelletier, the cast of the play J’appelle mes Frères (by Jonas Hassen Khemiri). It was a first big role for him. The second came with Richardson’s character in the series I would like someone to erase me, broadcast on ICI Tou.tv.
Playing a criminal of Haitian origin from the Saint-Michel district who sells drugs? Anglesh Major wanted to avoid this stereotypical character, but a meeting with Eric Piccoli changed his mind. “There is everything in this role: a bad guy, a nice guy, a charmer, a fearful guy,” the director tells him.
The reviews were unanimous. And for Anglesh Major, it was a revelation. “Being an actor means playing someone else, but with a part of yourself. »
“A big part of the job is contact with real life,” says Anglesh Major, who worked at the CHUM in housekeeping for eight years. An experience that temporarily made him want to become a neuropsychologist. “I saw some cases, but I was particularly touched by everything relating to memory,” he says. Memory is the accumulation of what we are. »
“A hospital is cold from the outside, but it’s so human on the inside,” continues the man who plays the role of an emergency doctor in the daily STAT.
A role for which he went to audition with “naivety” – a word he will use several times during our interview. His agent even had to remind him that STAT was going to replace the television phenomenon District 31 (in which he had a small role).
Before STAT, another offer that he accepted with “naivety” was that of Alexandre Goyette to take over the sole role of the acclaimed play King Dave, at the Théâtre Duceppe.
It was when Anglesh Major started rehearsals that he realized many actors would have refused to do a 100-minute monologue.
But the pressure didn’t just come from pages and pages of text to memorize. The media, including La Presse, spoke of “the first black actor to defend a solo show in a major Montreal theater.”
At one point in rehearsal, Anglesh Major “broke” during a routine. “You’re going to tell me what’s going on,” his director Christian Fortin told him. Anglesh confessed: he was afraid of disappointing his community. “It’s not a fuel,” Fortin retorted. You are the character of a work. Stay in. »
Anglesh Major was praised by critics. Then, he multiplied the roles until STAT, notably in Cérébrum, A criminal affair and Larry.
Friday evening, Anglesh Major even performed at the Bell Center for the 20th anniversary of Disques 7ième Ciel, the label of Koriass and FouKi, with whom he released the minialbum Ephemeres in 2021.
Like many young people, Anglesh Major first wanted to become a rapper. Instead of buying beats, he decided to produce them. Later, he was introduced to the Montreal scene at Ausgang Plaza as part of the Loop Sessions evenings.
One day he was in the studio with D4vid Lee when Imposs showed up unexpectedly to offer him a collaboration a few hours later. Imposs, this monument of Quebec rap and member of Muzion? Anglesh pinches himself again.
He also pinches himself knowing that his idol Timbaland follows him on Instagram and has even liked a few of his posts. “I haven’t dared to write to him yet, but I want to be ready if he says to me: ‘Come away’”
“I’m doing less music at the moment and I miss it,” says Anglesh Major.
Conversely, Anglesh Major does a lot of voice acting. The dream cherished by the adept of the martial art muay thai? Being given a very physical role as played by his idol Denzel Washington.
It’s launched into the universe.
