** Ugh, I really need to find a way to properly credit these quotes. Until I do, I'll just list the sources here. The Terrence Mann quote came from the Associated Press. The Ian MeKellen quotes came from his official site. The Martin Shaw quotes came from an article on the A&E website. The Raymond Massey quote comes from his autobiography, "A Hundred Different Lives." The rest are excerpts from the Center Stage interviews that are archived on the Official Site. I will continue to add things from other sources as I find them.**

Chauvelin In General:
"I think Chauvelin is a manic character. He has been corrupted by the power that he's achieved. He has become one of the things that he hated but he doesn't know that. He's self-deluded. He is like a 'Hitler figure.' And he thinks that everything he's doing is for the right. That's the whole opening number. "Madame Guillotine" is 'I am doing the right thing. I am cleansing. I am getting rid of the scum of the earth that oppressed me.' And he takes a certain joy in that, but there's also a sadistic side of him. He loves to toy with people. He loves to toy with Marguerite. He loves to manipulate. It's all a power struggle. 'You take power, I take it away from you.'"
- Mark McGrath (SP2 u/s Chauvelin)

"You know those great cartoons they used to have where they would show a man sitting on a park bench and then they would show his shadow, and what his shadow really wanted to be doing, like choking the person he was talking to? I think Chauvelin is very much the dark side of everybody."
- Rex Smith (SP2 Chauvelin)

"Chauvelin is just a hero that took a wrong turn. If he had turned all of these energies on the right path... I really believe that, like a great many people in that time, in the Revolution, he began for all the right reasons and it's four years later, and it's just become mired and knee-deep in blood and irresponsibility. In any war or revolution there have been people who were carrying the flag and hoping for a better life and ending up thinking 'What have I done?' I think that's what's happened to this man."
- Rex Smith (SP2 Chauvelin)

"He doesn't think he's being a bad guy, he just has his point of view. Chauvelin just wants to get Marguerite back and he just wants the bourgeois to come down. He just wants what he wants."
- Tom Zemon (SP2 u/s Chauvelin)

"Chauvelin is a character you recognize. It's more Percy or Marguerite that you empathize with."
- Marc Kudisch (SP3 Chauvelin)

"Chauvelin is not a creature of society. Chauvelin is a creature of action. He's a creature of ambition. He's a Richard the Third. He was not built for times of peace. He believes in the French Revolution because he rationalizes that it gives him a great stature in that society."
- Marc Kudisch (SP3 Chauvelin)

"He's a very strong minded man. He's idealistic but misguided. He's fanatical. He believes in the humanist, the enlightened development of man in society. Unfortunately it was coming at a time in France when there was a lot of bitterness and hatred towards the blue bloods and he found that the catharsis for him came from beheading all the royalty. He is a very visceral man. For him, blood and battle and combat and love and passion are very physical, very palpable experiences. He absorbed Rousseau and the other writers at that time in a very literal way - a very physical, as opposed to metaphysical way."
- William Michals (SP4 Chauvelin)

"I always thought it odd that the Scarlet Pimpernel, the ultimate monarchist aristocrat, should be more of a hero for audiences in the USA than his arch republican rival. Chauvelin's political savagery is, after all, at the service of the revolution on which the United States based much of its Constitution."
- Ian McKellen (1982 Chauvelin)

"The film's popularity continues on US television -- for a time there was even a Chauvelin fan club amongst college students. But why should Americans (whether Republican or Democrat) favour a tale about an attempt to undermine the French Revolution, whose hero is a forthright monarchist and whose villain is Robespierre's devotee?"
- Ian McKellen (1982 Chauvelin)

"Chauvelin is as villainous as they come. He is determined to send the Pimpernel to the guillotine and I hope he's so bad the audience will boo him."
- Martin Shaw (1999 BBC/A&E Chauvelin)

"He is somebody whose background as a rich bourgeois was very unhappy and the political ideals of the Revolution gripped and excited the young Chauvelin before it went completely wrong, so he is a political idealist with a bit of a chip on his shoulder from his past, but he hasn't completely lost the grace and manners of his upbringing which are always at odds with the coarse violence of the Revolution."
- Martin Shaw (1999 BBC/A&E Chauvelin)

"To be honest, I didn't find the book much help as far as research was concerned because I don't think Baroness Orczy really cared very much. Not having read it, I thought it would be like Les Miserables or Tales of Two Cities, but it's really not in the same league so we're very fortunate that Richard Carpenter has done such a good job with the adaptation. To be perfectly frank, it's not a very good book. But the script is excellent."
- Martin Shaw (1999 BBC/A&E Chauvelin) **This one isn't directly about Chauvelin's character, but I thought I'd include it because I think it helps to partially explain why the BBC/A&E Pimpernel movies turned out as rotten as they did.**

"I never had such fun working in a movie as I did in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Of all the heavies I have played on the screen, the most wicked and the most fun to do was Chauvelin."
- Raymond Massey (1934 Chauvelin)

Comparing Chauvelin To Javert:
"I'm still in black, but the role isn't really like Javert. Not even close. It's much more stylish - a little sexier and a little more charming."
- Terrence Mann (SP1 Chauvelin)

"There are similarities, but the main difference is that Javert is completely void of any sexuality. He's got a relationship with God. Chauvelin is a horny little devil. Chauvelin is all about his crotch. Chauvelin is a sadist. Javert is just really interested in being pure and correct."
- Tom Zemon (SP2 u/s Chauvelin)

Chauvelin And Percy/The Scarlet Pimpernel:
"You mean when I'm putting Doug up there [putting Percy in the guillotine]? To me, again it's fun, it's powerful, because I'm playing this madman. At that moment I'm Chauvelin getting rid of someone that's been a thorn in my butt for such a long time and I've also saved my own life. The stakes are very high so when I go, 'It is done. It is done.' it's like, 'God, thank you. I have saved my life. I have gotten rid of this thorn in my butt.'"
- Mark McGrath (SP2 u/s Chauvelin)

"That's why there's humor in the situation because you see the frustration of him trying to find something that's right under his nose. It's there the whole time. It doesn't make him stupid though. That was very important to me. Chauvelin is not an idiot. He's just so aggressively trying to find...like you know, 'Where the hell are my keys?' when they're in your hand. But you're so intent on finding them that you're not stopping to observe for a minute that they're in your hand. That's the kind of character he is...to me."
- Marc Kudisch (SP3 Chauvelin)

"The great thing about playing villains is that there is always a surprise to be had. Chauvelin's surprise is that he still loves Marguerite and Sir Percy stole her away. He's bitter and twisted about it and it certainly adds an edge to his relationship with Sir Percy when he eventually discovers he's the Pimpernel."
- Martin Shaw (1999 BBC/A&E Chauvelin)

Chauvelin And His Relationship With Marguerite:
"To my own dismay, I still think I'm going to get her back, too. I even go over to her and go, 'Are you ready to come home now?' In my sick way I think I'm going to get her back but of course I'm not going to get her back. But that's all the fun stuff to play."
- Mark McGrath (SP2 u/s Chauvelin)

"I want you to look at me when I sing "Where's the Girl" and I pick up the scarf... it's my trophy. I want you to know 'This is mine, I'll be back.'"
- Mark McGrath (SP2 u/s Chauvelin)

"He loves to toy with people. He loves to toy with Marguerite. He loves to manipulate."
- Mark McGrath (SP2 u/s Chauvelin)

"Marguerite is the closest thing he's ever had to love, so it's a very obsessive, visceral kind of thing. She's a real partner for him. She's got as much guts and fire as he does and he likes that. He doesn't want a woman that's just going to be "there." He wants someone that is going to fight. He likes the challenge. He's always up for the challenge. That's what makes him interesting to me. He's very desperate. He's very ripped by her. The fact that she would actually leave France...he felt the whole time that she was fighting next to him, that she was into it, that she was with it, that she understood it. Now she's going off with this..."
- Marc Kudisch (SP3 Chauvelin)

"He's driven and his humongous flaw is Marguerite."
- Marc Kudisch (SP3 Chauvelin)

"He just got involved in that [the revolution] and he was never able to give himself over to the love for Marguerite with his soul and with his heart, as he was able to with his body. In fact, the way I play Chauvelin, it's just about the time of the beginning of the show when Marguerite has a very interested, very eligible lover calling upon her and Chauvelin is aware that Percival Blakeney is interested. Chauvelin is indeed getting up the courage and the wherewithal to make a more lasting commitment to Marguerite, and for me, that starting point serves me very well. The first scene of the show is a very bitter slap in the face to Chauvelin and it really helps to feed his actions throughout the show."
- William Michals (SP4 Chauvelin)