Black Sheep interviews Marc-André Grondin

NOBODY'S GOON
An interview with GOON star, Marc-André Grondin

Before Québécois actor, Marc-André Grondin started work on the Canadian hockey comedy, GOON, he was not what you would call a great skater. “I skated like shit,” is how he actually put it to me.

This meant Grondin would have to train to convincingly play Xavier Laflamme, a major league hockey player burnout, who has been demoted to the minor league, which he can still barely keep up with. “The players today are machines. They start at 12 in the gym. There are like five guys in all of the NHL who are my size,” he explains of his motivation to pick up his game, with only a hint of self-deprecation. “So I trained. I had to go on a big diet. It was two and a half months of hell.” But worth it, I’m sure.

Laflamme is a character Grondin knows well. In fact, the tweaked out, trashy Québécois hockey bum is a character we all know well, whether we’re hockey fans or not. Rather than allow the character to sink into cliche though, friend and GOON co-writer, Jay Baruchel, worked with Grondin to keep the character feeling real. “When Jay sent me the script, there were a couple of things we knew we had to work on, mainly to not make this French-Canadian character a joke. We didn’t want ‘Tabarnac’ to be the punch line.”

Their efforts were successful. Actually, Baruchel, along with co-writer, Evan Goldberg (SUPERBAD), and director, London, Ontario native, Michael Dowse (FUBAR), injected Goon with so much genuine heart that none of the main characters succumb to any of their potential trappings.

Grondin, with co-star Seann William Scott

“The heart comes from Jay. He’s just like that,” Grondin says of his longtime friend, and fellow Montrealer. “He can see a douchebag, a nerd, a gay guy, a Russian, stuck up parents or potheads, whatever. Even though he labels them, he doesn’t judge them. I think that’s what comes out in Goon.”

And did Baruchel write the part of Laflamme with Grondin in mind? “That’s what he told me,” Grondin says, somewhat suspiciously. When he realizes I’m not sure if he’s kidding or not, he continues, “Well, he told me so early on in the process that I have to believe him.”

My Ottawa Xpress GOON cover story

Ever since Grondin’s breakout in Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y., he has been working consistently in Québec and France. When I ask why he never went after the English market or Hollywood, he gets a little reticent, as if nervous not to say the wrong thing. I learn why when he says, “I don’t really dream of a perfect career because my happiness doesn’t reside in movies,” he admits, candidly. “If you ask me what it would take for me to be happy, I would say a small farm and a family, maybe a few horses. If I work in the US or in France, it doesn’t matter, as long as I can bay my bills and work with interesting people.”

Before we move on, Grondin chimes in with one more thought on the subject. “Obviously I still see some English films and think, fuck, I wish I could have done that.”

Grondin will be seen later this year in the Victor Hugo adaptation, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, alongside Gérard Depardieu. With GOON now behind him though, is he keeping up with his hockey? “When we finished shooting, I continued working out. I stopped the diet but I continued playing hockey.”

GOON, which also stars Seann William Scott, is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Alliance Films.

AMERICAN REUNION

AMERICAN REUNION
Written and Directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
Starring Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan and Seann William Scott

I never went to my high school reunion. It wasn’t because I was so insanely popular in high school that I didn’t need to belittle myself by making an appearance. Nor was I such an incredible outcast that I would be too afraid to show my face. I was simply sick the night it was happening. One could suggest this was psychosomatic but regardless, there was no getting more than ten feet away from my washroom that night. That said, I’m not sure I would have gone even if I was feeling well. I certainly would have seriously considered it though if it meant getting a fat pay check at a point in my career when I desperately needed it. Welcome to AMERICAN REUNION.

It has been 13 years since the first AMERICAN PIE film hit theatres and announced to parents everywhere that their kids were into some weird stuff. Since that point though, things have mellowed to the point of tired, cliched monotony. Jim and Michelle (Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan) have gone from fun with flutes and pies to baby duty and solitary sex in separate bedrooms. And the rest of the gang isn’t doing any better. Everyone has some form of overdone problem to overcome, from issues with success to general lack of direction. There is even another boring marriage; it’s different though because they at least have sex and are still bored. Naturally, everyone needs a break from life and a trip to simpler times. There is no better cure for adult problems like resorting back into childlike behaviour and getting plastered in the process.

The reason I might have maybe made myself sick in my own head before my reunion is because I didn’t feel the need to go back there. I had moved past it and left it behind me, the good and the bad. And if I didn’t care enough to go back and see my own high school friends, I certainly saw no real reason to revisit these sad sacks. AMERICAN REUNION reeks of desperation.Their original audience is 13 years older now, and some of us have matured a little since then. Yet, the film is aimed at a much younger frame of mind because that’s the audience it wants. The trouble is that generation doesn’t even remember AMERICAN PIE in the first place. And so I left this reunion feeling exactly like I assumed I would after leaving my own - like I never should have gone in the first place.

Black Sheep interviews Jay Baruchel

THE ENFORCER
An interview with GOON star/writer, Jay Baruchel

For Canadians, it is considered borderline sacrilegious to not be a hockey fan. I know this because I am not actually a hockey fan. Despite this horrible aspect of my personality, I still managed to greatly enjoy GOON, a new hockey movie that practically does away with the sport itself and strips it down to what everyone secretly really wants to see - the moment the gloves come off and these massive guys on skates go to town on each others’ faces with their fists.

GOON co-stars and was co-written and co-produced by Ottawa born and Montreal homed, Jay Baruchel, who is a big, big hockey fan. “Hockey is my religion,” he tells me over the phone, with not a single hint of sarcasm. “The Habs play 82 games a year; I probably watch 76 of them. It’s how I organize my weeks.” And while that might sound extreme, just you wait. “Even as I sit here right now, I’m wearing a Habs jersey, sitting on a Habs pillow and playing with my Habs wallet.”

Yes, I’d say Baruchel is a very big hockey fan. It suits him well too.

Baruchel’s love (read, obsession) for the game served him well on GOON, which was directed by Michael Dowse, of FUBAR fame. The film shines for two main reasons, not the least of which is its authenticity and evident appreciation for the sport itself. “There’s no bullshit you can smell in this movie,” Baruchel jokes. “It is a passion project built by people that love this game and are fascinated by this way of life.”

Baruchel celebrating co-star, Scott

The second reason, is the film’s star, Seann William Scott. Famous for comedic parts in the AMERICAN PIE series and the classic, DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?, Scott would not be my first choice for the sensitive role of Doug Glatt, a guy going nowhere and getting up there in years, who discovers his calling working as an enforcer for a minor league hockey team in Halifax, Nova Scotia. For Baruchel, there was no other choice.

“We were very lucky that he was able to do it and I can say this now that the movie is made and about to come out, but we didn’t have a backup!” Aside from being glad it all worked out, Baruchel also has nothing but kind things to say about Scott. “Anybody who has ever met Seann for 30 seconds knows that he has a massive heart and is the most humble, disarming guy you’ll ever meet. He puts most Canadians to shame.”

With co-star and fiancee, Toronto native, Alison Pill

While Baruchel has been making waves in both Canada and the USA with acting turns in GOOD NEIGHBOURS and as the voice of the hero in HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, GOON marks the first time he has written a feature screenplay. “It’s the first time anything I’ve written has ever been made,” he corrects me. For Baruchel, the rewards of writing carried certain expectations but he was still unprepared for the reality of how it all played out. “When you see these people connect to these characters that you created so much so that they start to know the character better than you, that was what was most exciting. These are people I wrote but the actors took ownership of them.”

Baruchel, looking smooth.

Unbeknownst to Baruchel, his own appreciative nature during our conversation was also quite disarming for me. While Baruchel is riotously vulgar as Doug’s best friend in GOON, it is clearly his role as writer that left him feeling smashed against the boards, y’know, in a good way. “It was a difficult movie to make but even at its hardest point, it was still this thing that came from my heart and my head that was now becoming real. I was just on a high the entire time we were filming.”