ERIC CANTONA came to Cannes yesterday for the world premiere of his new film,
Looking for Eric, and the media turned out in force. Photographers surrounded him when he arrived at the Festival Palais for a press conference. He was one of six people on that panel, which included the film's director, Ken Loach, but most of the questions were for Cantona.
Journalists covering Cannes would not like colleagues to see them being so uncool as to request autographs, but the press were shameless about asking Cantona. Some even brought along posters and programmes from his days as a professional footballer and asked him to sign them.
The former Manchester United player has featured in 15 movies since he made his acting debut in 1995, and he and his brother Joel, another former footballer, run their own film company, Canto Bros Productions, in their native Marseille. "I've always loved the cinema," Eric Cantona said at the Cannes press conference. "I love Ken Loach's films – The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Riff Raff, Family Life.These are classics that will live forever." He also expressed his admiration for the films of the late Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, adding that they have "a very different style, of course".
Acting in movies has given him a lot of pleasure, he said. “It’s a real passion for me. I stopped playing football when I was 30 because I lost my passion for the game. Now I’m passionate about film.” And if he loses that passion, he will concentrate on playing the trumpet, which he does briefly in Looking for Eric.
He is an executive producer on the film, in which he plays a version of himself. It deals with the travails of a middle-aged Manchester postman also named Eric and played by Steve Evets. As his life gets complicated and depressing, he addresses his problems to the huge Cantona poster on his bedroom wall. The former footballer appears to come to life and gives him nuggets of philosophical advice.
Cantona was involved with the film from the earliest stages of its development. “Some people say it’s difficult to play oneself,” he remarked. “In life, one is spontaneous. This film is fiction, but you have to remain natural and spontaneous. There was a degree of tension before it started shooting that I didn’t experience when I played other characters, but by the first day I had the requisite self-confidence.”
Asked to compare being directed by Ken Loach and being coached by Alex Ferguson, Cantona noted that they are very similar personalities. “They are in activities that are totally different, but they both get 100 per cent from their actors or their players. They’re both very humble as well. Each of them got me to give every bit of myself. They brought out the best in me.”
Looking for Ericis a contender for the Cannes festival's most coveted prize, the Palme d'Or, which Loach won three years ago with his Irish War of Independence drama, The Wind that Shakes the Barley.
If the new film takes an award at the Cannes closing ceremony on Sunday night, it will be a birthday present for Cantona, who is 43 on the same day.