Jean-Michel Portal

Jean-Michel Portal , born on May 29 , 1970 in Paris , is a French actor .

As a teenager, he is one of the members of pop rock band Alex de Lys . He was nominated to the César for Best Male Presenter for his role in The House of Officers.

Jean-Michel Portal was born in Paris on May 29, 1970. However , he spent his childhood in the Béziers region of Valras Plage . After a short passage in the suburbs of Paris, he left for Brionne , a small Norman village between Rouen and Evreux. At the age of nine, he participated actively in a puppetry workshop, where he wrote small pieces: it's a beginning of theater.

However, it is in the music that he invests at first, by founding the pop rock band Alex de Lys (singer, composer, guitarist) with friends. To follow the tours, he stopped his studies at eighteen, after a class of first option plastic arts.

Jean-Michel works in a restaurant to pay for the summer internship at Cours Florent . On contest, he gets the free class, which he will follow for a year. This is where he meets Isabelle Nanty , who is his teacher. In 1989, the latter advised him to audition for "A Life of Theater" , a play by David Mamet directed by Michel Piccoli . He was selected and played with Jean Rochefort at the Théâtre des Mathurins in Paris. He landed his first contract with an agent.

In 1989, it was the beginnings in cinema, with a role in Tumultes , by Bertrand van Effenterre. Jean-Michel Portal followed in 1991 with Veraz , alongside Kirk Douglas.

In 1992, he was admitted to a competition at the Conservatoire and then joined Catherine Hiegel's class . The same year, he directed Bruno Nuytten's second film , Albert Souffre , with Julien Rassam, punctuated by the music of the Pixies. Jean-Michel left the Conservatoire in 1994 and played in La Cagnotte ( Labiche ) directed by Julie Brochen.

Always on the stage, Jean-Michel Portail plays with Marcial Di Fonzo Bo in Richard III directed by Matthias Langhoff , in 1996. The same year, he finds his theater partner in The Man I Love , Stéphane Giusti . Indeed, Jean-Michel Portal was initially present at the tests only to give the replica Marcial di Fonzo Bo, but he ends up by interpreting Lucas in the film. In 1997, Michel Piccoli again appealed to him for his film Voilà voilà . That year, Jean-Michel Portal also toured Fabrice Cazeneuve's television movie, A fait divers .

The theater continues, with a text by François Bon directed by Charles Tordjman, The Life of Myriam C. in 1998, and Hedda Gabler by Acquaviva, in 1999. And here again the cinema: in Our happy lives , Jean-Michel Portal interprets one of the six main characters; the film is presented in Cannes.

In 2000, he replies to Eric Caravaca in François Dupeyron's film , La Chambre des officiers , which earned him the nomination for the 2002 César for Meilleur espoir. Meanwhile, he devoted himself to the company he created with May Bouada, "They are beautiful in space", with which he mounts the saucy piece of Maupassant : A leaf of rose, Turkish house . He then leaves for Valencia, Spain, to shoot Not so serious , Bernard Rapp , with Romain Duris and Sami Bouajila . Back in France, he plays with the Compagnie des Lucioles in Garbage, the city and death , by Fassbinder , directed by Pierre Maillet. They start in Rennes then begin a nice tour to Paris in June 2003.