Former Manchester United soccer superstar Eric Cantona is carving a name for himself as an actor after Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric, in which he stars, opened to critical acclaim at Cannes earlier in the week. He’s been tapped by Herve P. Gustave, who goes by the moniker HPG, to star in Les mouvements du basin (The Pelvis Moves) in which he’ll take the lead role.
HPG had previously brought On ne devrait pas existir (We Should Not Exist) to Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight in 2006. According to Variety, the film will explore the relationship between two characters, Thierry (played by Cantona), a student of self-defense martial arts, and Marion who longs to have a child.
The film will be produced by Capricci Films, a French production company also working on a big-screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, to be helmed by Albert Serra, also a Director’s Fortnight veteran. The film will cast non-professional actors and use a bare-bones screenplay to allow on-set improvisation.
Cantona, who quit football in 1997, has dipped his toes in big-screen acting ever since, most notably playing Monsieur de Foix in Shekhar Kapur’s 1998 film Elizabeth alongside Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush. French Film, in which he co-stars with Hugh Bonneville and Anne-Marie Duff, opened recently in the US and UK.
