Benoît Poelvoorde
| Benoît Poelvoorde | |
|---|---|
Benoît Poelvoorde in 2013
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| Born |
22 September 1964 Namur, Belgium |
| Occupation | Actor, screenwriter, director and producer |
| Years active | 1983–present |
Benoît Poelvoorde (born 22 September 1964) is a Belgian actor and comedian.
His mother was a grocer and his father a driver, who died when Poelvoorde was still a minor. He attended the Jesuit Boarding School of Godinne before he left home at 17 to take classes at the Félicien Rops Technical Institute in Namur (Belgium) where he met Rémy Belvaux. He developed a passion for theater and became noted for his atypical interpretations. Not only was he was destined to become a draughtsman, he also developed professionality as a photographer. During his graphic design studies at the in Brussels, he also became friend with André Bonzel and, together with Rémy Belvaux, directed in 1988 Pas de C4 pour Daniel Daniel, his first movie, a student short film (which he co-directed and co-wrote). It was a stylized trailer for a mock-spy film.
In 1992, Poelvoorde, Delvaux and Bonzel wrote, produced and directed together their first long feature C'est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog internationally) originally a low-budget school graduation project (1992) and a kind of cynical "noir" movie, inspired from the famous Belgian series "Strip-Tease" which went on to become a critically acclaimed cult movie. The film received the André Cavens Award for Best Film by the Belgian Film Critics Association (UCC).
Poelvoorde subsequently starred in two series on the French pay-channel Canal+ and several movies such as Les Randonneurs, Le Boulet and Podium, which made him famous in France and Belgium. In 2001, he starred in Le Vélo de Ghislain Lambert, a movie about one of his passions, bicycling. In 2002, he received the Jean Gabin Prize, which recognized the most hopeful young talents. Poelvoorde became a member of the Cannes Film Festival Jury in 2004, on Quentin Tarantino's request, a big fan of Man Bites Dog, who presided over the Jury, that year.
In 2005 he ranked in 7th place in the Walloon version of the Greatest Belgian. In the Flemish version he came in at nr. 400 outside the official list of nominations.
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