Michael-Vartan.net | Your Source to Everything Michael Vartan!

ARTICLES - "Franco-American Fox: Actor Michael Vartan's Heart Belongs to Hockey"

Franco-American Fox: Actor Michael Vartan's Heart Belongs to Hockey by Sopie De Rakoff
Paper Magazine, September, 1997

At the Sundance Film Festival, writer/director Bart Freundlich's debut movie, The Myth of Fingerprints, caused quite a stir. The drama about an estranged family coming together for a not-so-cozy Thansgiving boasts a large ensamble cast that includes Blythe Danner, Roy Scheider, Noah Wyle, Hope Davis and Julianne Moore as the the parents, siblings and significant others who bring all their emotional baggage to the table along with the turkey. As Jake, the oldest son who is unable to tell his girlfriend (Hope Davis) that he loves her, actor Michael Vartan is the mouthpiece for one of the story's pivotal issues. "Do you think you have to have had a healthy family life to have a successful relationship?" he asks his sister, Mia (Julianne Moore). To which she quickly responds, "I hope not."

Real life doesn't seem to have been quite so traumatic for the 28-year-old Vartan. Sweet, funny and handsome, the son of a French musician father and an American mother, he admits that "my parents got married, had me and then got divorced practically the next day." Vartan spent his first 18 years in a tiny idyllic French village with his father. "It was the greatest place to grow up," he boasts. "All I thought about was soccer and ditching school until I saw my first Playboy at 17."

A reluctant thespian with a healthy degree of cynicim about the film business and his role in it, Vartan spends more time playing ice hockey than worrying about his career. He came to acting by accident after moving to L.A., where is mother lived. She suggested acting lessons. "She thought I'd make friends, and I thought I'd meet girls," he laughs. Vartan actually got his first acting break in France, where is family name (he's the nephew of chanteuse Sylvie Vartan -- "She's the French Liza Minnelli") landed him a couple of roles. Ever self-deprecating, Vartan suggest that "after five or six more years, I got a little better" and, by chance, landed the role of Scott, one of the core group of friends in The Pallbearer, starring David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Myth of Fingerprints, which Vartan describes as "a complicated story told in a simple way," is the movie he's most proud of. "It's an example of a part that was right for me," he says. " I love acting, but I hate the business side of it, and this was the best fun I ever had on a film. It felt like a community. Blyth Danner would have everyone over to her condo and cook pasta. I got lucky." What's next for the guy whose heart belongs to hockey and who says he is very good at not working? "I'm off to make a movie with Dan Rosen, Josh Charles and Dana Delaney. Baltimore in August... Oh Joy!"

Disclaimer / Copyright
This is simply a fansite. I am not Michael Vartan, nor am I affiliated with him in anyway.
All Images belongs to their rightful owners, no copyright infringement intended. Do not use any content from the site without permission.

© 2007 by Michael-Vartan.net | Site created by Emilie