Many of us recognized Dany Papineau‘s acting talent when he appeared in the VFS Film Production short Alibi, Inc., directed by Dany’s collaborator and fellow grad Grégoire Bédard. Within a few years of graduating from the Acting for Film & Television program, Dany wrote, directed, co-starred, and produced 2 Frogs in the West, a 21-minute short film based on his own experiences as a young man from Quebec exploring Canada’s West. That initiative opened doors for Dany’s acting career, helping him land a role in the big-budget Underworld: Evolution. 2 Frogs is now getting closer to becoming a full feature, with a projected shoot schedule for this Fall.

Here’s what Dany had to say about his journey up until now:

Q: Being a bilingual actor with experience on screen in both languages, how would you compare the acting opportunities in French-language media to those in English-language media?
A: Hum, I could write an essay on this one but I’ll keep it short. Everyone has a different journey but I think that you have to create your own opportunities. Nowadays, we’re in a global market and (acting) opportunities can be found anywhere on the planet. As an actor or filmmaker, exposure brings work and I believe that the best opportunity that you can get is to have your best film work screening in festivals around the world, in French, English, or any language. Now, if you ever get the luck to be in such a production and you don’t speak English (whatever your first language may be), that’s where you might “lose opportunities.” Whether some Quebecers like this or not, English is currently the language of the world and it sure is an advantage to speak it – in a standard American accent, of course!

Q: How did you land a part in Underworld: Evolution?
A: I graduated a month before September 11th, 2001, which quite affected the film business on the West Coast. Fewer productions came to Vancouver and with all the competition out there, it made it quite hard for new talent to get auditions. Since Vancouver is primarily a market for American films to come to town, local casting directors really are all about auditions in a standard American accent, which at the time, I was having a difficulty with. But since I had always been inspired by actor-filmmakers who made it happen for themselves, I thought I would start developing my own personal projects. And that’s pretty much how I came up with the short film version of 2 Frogs in the West. Soon enough, I got a small grant from the NFB to get me started. Once I shot the film, I sent a DVD copy of it to all the Vancouver casting directors. One of them really liked it and she started to see me in auditions. That casting director got me seen for Underwolrd: Evolution, and I booked it.  I gotta say, I can’t even tell you how much of a happy moment it was after all those years of effort.

Q: What’s your working relationship like with (fellow VFS grad) Grégoire Bédard?
A: Like any couple it was a love-hate relationship. Lol… No, seriously, Grégoire is an amazing guy who’s really talented. Co-writing a film is not an easy task but we worked together like mad men on the 2 Frogs script for about a year. We became great iChat friends re-re-re-re-re-re-writing the script over about 10 drafts. We then found a producer named Jacques Roiseux (a French-Canadian who’s been living in BC for 30 years!) and decided to invest in the production of the 2 Frogs teaser with our own savings. Unfortunately, 2 Frogs is quite an ambitious project. It’s really not easy to shoot a film with your own money, and Grégoire decided to leave for personal reasons. But I have to say, I would not be writing this Q & A if I hadn’t met him.

Q: How closely is the story of 2 Frogs based on your life?
A: You know 2 Frogs in the West is the story of a 20-year-old girl leaving Quebec to go travel and learn English in Whistler, right? So, since I’m not a girl, I would say around 75% -ish. Lol. Actually, I would say the film is inspired from my own story and from stories of fellow French-Canadians traveling out West in search of themselves. Over the years, a lot of “frogs” have left Quebec to go travel in the mountains, but found something else along the way, and that’s really what 2 Frogs in the West is all about.

Q: Can you explain how it’s growing from a short film into a feature?
A: Well, I always envisioned a feature film in the first place. At the start of it, I didn’t have that many contacts in the biz and I was debating doing a documentary or a short film on it to showcase the potential of the subject. A producer I met along the way told me it would be better to do a short film since it would help establish me and the subject in the “fictional” world, which is what I ended up doing.

Q: How has the 2 Frogs Facebook group helped this project gain momentum?
A: Oh, it’s amazing. The Internet is the best tool for anyone wanting to get a message out there. And since the film business is all about networking, Facebook is the ultimate tool. Since we’ve put our teaser online at www.2frogs.ca, our 2 Frogs group grew tremendously. At the moment, we can proudly say that we are one of the biggest Quebec film groups. We use it to keep our fans informed about the development of the project with bilingual messages in French and English. Ultimately, after working for eight years on this baby, I really want people to see it, which is ultimately what the group should help to accomplish.

Q: Is there anything else you’re working on now (or coming up soon)?
A: It’s 30 degrees in Montreal today. I’m sweating like a pig as I write this, and I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a week of vacation in Boston and New York. Quite the workload, eh? When I get back from vacation, I will be doing some editing on the material that we shot last fall. We are waiting for answers from Telefilm that are coming at the end July. If everything goes well, we’ll be shooting the rest of the film this October in Whistler, right before the Olympics. And that’s enough for now on my plate!

We’ll keep our fingers crossed for that Telefilm funding, Dany! Good luck!

Watch the 2 Frogs in the West teaser at 2frogs.ca