Offside

Eric Cantona on His Lifelong Passion for Cinema, Being an Actor for 30 Years and Love for Ken Loach

15 May 2026, 08:44 by Alex Ritman · Variety

The busiest actor in Cannes this year is a man considerably more famous for his artistry on the football field than on screen.

Eric Cantona has an impressive three films in the festival, with the French soccer legend and Manchester United hero acting in two and the subject of another.

In Avril Besson’s debut feature “Marvellous Mornings,” he plays a wine merchant alongside India Hair and Raya Martigny. Then there’s Ali Cherri’s short “The Sentinel,” premiering in Critics’ Week. But likely to get the most attention is the documentary feature “Cantona,” getting a special screening in the official selection and, as the title suggests, all about him.

Directed by David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas, “Cantona” dives into the man behind the legend, the unquestionably gifted yet frequently unpredictable enfant terrible of French football, once branded unmanageable by the press. But its chief focus is his time at Manchester United where, under the guidance of manager Alex Ferguson, he became ‘King Eric,’ reviving the club and igniting a new dynasty. That is, until he suddenly retired in 1997 at the age of 30, having helped United to a fourth league championship in five years.

Cantona has now bean an actor 30 years, longer than he was a footballer — and with numerous visits to Cannes (most notably in 2009 for Ken Loach’s “Looking for Eric”).

Speaking to Variety, he discusses how his passion for film first began in the cinemas of Marseille, why he went straight into acting after he retired from sport and the French actor who would help give him the confidence he needed at the start.

How do you feel about the documentary “Cantona”

It’s unusual. It not only about the career of a player — it’s more about the relationship between the manager and a personality. I think that everybody who wants to be the manager of a football team or company or even a father with kids should see the film, because Ferguson showed how you could deal with any kind of personality.

I’m sure a lot of people have wanted to make a film with you. What was it about this that was different?

I wanted to have something special, something that could be a heritage for my family and for my kids — something more artistic. And I think this one is much more artistic than the others.

Eric Cantona with Alex Ferguson in the doc “Cantona.” Credit: Offside / David Davie

In the documentary, we see that you come from a very artistic and creative family, and had a passion for painting from an early age. When did you develop a passion for cinema?

I always had a passion for any kind of art. And cinema, of course, is the seventh art. So yes, I was passionate. I grew up in Marseille. It was a time when you had a cinema in one small part of the city and another one in another small part of the city. But we had a great cinema in my area, and they showed a lot of Bruce Lee films, which we really enjoyed. And at the end of the movie we were all fighting together. Bruce Lee is still one of the people I admire. He was of course a great actor, but a great philosopher.

Can you remember the first movie you watched in a cinema.

The first movie I saw was “The Towering Inferno” with Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. That was the first. My father took us all together. And I also watched a lot of movies on VHS.

So when was it that you first started thinking about becoming an actor yourself?

I was very, very, very passionate about art, even when I was very young. I was passionate about football. And I decided to start with football. But I really felt like it was something I could try when I started to do advertising. I was lucky to be in some great adverts with great directors, and I really, really enjoyed it. So I said to myself, as soon as I finish football, I will try. But of course it depends on the desire of the directors and producers. And I think they had the same feeling — when they saw the advertising, they said ‘oh, maybe you can do something.’

And how was experience when you started?

Of course, I’m not like other actors — I didn’t go to theater school. I just learned by myself, observing everybody around me. And I was very lucky to start with a great French actor called Jacque Villeret. I played in a movie with him (“Mookie”) and we went to Mexico together. We spent two and a half months there, and then we did another movie with Jean Baker called “The Children of the Marshland.” He helped me a lot. He gave me this confidence. He was a great actor, but very, very nice — we had a great relationship. I think it’s very important when you start and don’t have any experience. But I was lucky to act in movies with him and he gave me this confidence. I could have been destroyed. People could have been ‘oh, he’s coming from football and wants to be an actor, we are actors, not him’. But he wasn’t like that.

It’s funny to hear you talk about confidence, because as a footballer you were renowned for your confidence on the pitch

But that was something that I knew very well. I started football when I was three years old. I went to the academy and I learned from the beginning, like an actor who goes to a theater school. I didn’t have that experience. I wanted to do it and I thought I could. But I wasn’t sure about anything. I was sure about one thing and that was my doubts. When you are in this kind of situation, it’s important that you want to learn. You have to find your own way to work. In sports it’s the same. And of course, I’ve had experience after experience after experience. I’ve now been acting for 30 years.

You’ve been an actor longer than you were a footballer!

Yeah! And it took for the people to accept that someone coming from another world could express himself as an actor, because they have strong image of me and sometimes they cannot accept it. And it takes for the audience to accept that you can do something else. Now I’m confident every time I go on set, even with great actors, actresses and great directors and also now the people have accepted that I can be an actor, which is great.

Most footballers go straight into punditry or coaching or something at least connected to the game. When you retired at 30, I’m sure offers like that were coming in. Were you just not interested?

No. It’s maybe because I retired so young. As I told you, since I was very young I wanted to express myself in any kind of art. I think I’d been a great professional, concentrating on football 100%, but I knew that I would try something else. I didn’t want to wait anymore. I’d also lost a bit of my passion for football.

You were in Cannes in 2009 with Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric. Do you have good memories about that film?

I love Ken. And I love Paul (Laverty, writer) and Rebecca (O’Brien, producer). They are wonderful people. Last weekend there was a retrospective of Ken Loach’s films in Paris and I came for the screening of “Looking for Eric.” I watched it with my daughter who’s 12-years-old, and she loved it and everybody loved it and I loved it. And I said the people there, which is true, that Ken is one of the three men I’ve been lucky to meet who are the best people in terms of humility, humanity and lots of humor. But I love Ken so much.