shorts - Made in Québec: Alexandre Despatie in À vos marques, Party!
By Mathieu Chantelois
Canada’s hottest name in diving has been making waves since he was a boy. In 1998, at just 13 years old, Alexandre Despatie made an international splash when he took home the gold in the 10-Metre Platform competition at the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games. He rode the winning wave all the way to the 2004 Athens Olympics, where he won silver in the Men’s Three-Metre Springboard event.
Throughout the years, Despatie has professed his passion for cinema. Simply put, the guy wants to be in pictures. Considering his celebrity and pin-up good looks, it was only a matter of time before producers came knocking. Quebec filmmaker Frédérik D’Amours was first at his door, offering the diving hero a role in the French-language feature À vos marques, Party!
The Mean Girls-esque comedy opened in Québec March 30th with Despatie playing — you guessed it — an Olympic diver.
Even Despatie admits he’s perfectly cast. “It doesn’t make me shy to play a boy toy and to appear bare-chested on camera. I’ve lived my life in a Speedo since I was five years old.”
As an actor, Despatie uses many of the techniques that have served him as an athlete, like ignoring his surroundings in order to focus. “I had two months of [acting] coaching before we started shooting, and I’m used to just doing what I’m told,” says the 21-year-old. “I find a lot of similarities between my sport and acting.”
His next challenge? The 2008 Beijing Olympics. “After that I’ll take some time off to think about my future.”
Whether Despatie surfaces in the water or on the silver screen remains to be seen, but regardless, he has no shortage of confidence. “Whatever I throw myself into, the sky’s the limit,” he says. “I’d love to act in the U.S., in France. I refuse to put barriers on myself.”
ARITFACT
This month’s objet de film: Flakies
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Will Ferrell and Jon Heder promote
Blades of Glory with “Flakies: The Breakfast of Winners”
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From time to time we here at Famous receive promotional items created by the studios to keep their films front and centre in the minds of journalists, and Will Ferrell seems to inspire some of the best items. We’re still finding fun things to do with the Ron Burgundy bobblehead doll that was sent to promote Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
And now comes this box of Flakies, “The Breakfast of Winners,” to hype Ferrell and Jon Heder’s Blades of Glory, about a couple of disqualified Men’s figure skaters who team up to compete in the Pairs competition instead.
Much like with a box of Wheaties, “The Breakfast of Champions,” Ferrell and Heder are featured in a triumphant pose on the front of the box, while the side panel features schematic drawings of the pair’s trademark move, the Iron Lotus, including such stages as the the Crotch Lift and the Straddle. —Marni Weisz
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