Michael Vartan Movies
French-American actor Michael Vartan made his handsome presence felt in several European and independent films before getting his Hollywood studio break in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed (1999).Born in Paris and raised in the small Normandy town of Fleury, Vartan moved to Los Angeles at age 18 to be with his American mother. Though he began taking acting classes in Los Angeles, Vartan nabbed his first film roles in the French productions Un Homme et Deux Femmes (1991) and Promenades d'Ete (1992). Still working in Europe, Vartan gained international attention as the doomed lover of the fabled title character in Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani's Fiorile (1993).
Returning to the Hollywood fold, Vartan appeared in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) and The Pallbearer (1996). He played more substantial roles, however, in the indie AIDS drama Touch Me (1997) and college crime thriller The Curve (1998), as well as playing Julianne Moore's brother in Sundance entrant The Myth of Fingerprints (1997). Vartan finally earned his first starring role in a Hollywood studio production when star/executive producer Drew Barrymore insisted that he be cast opposite her in Never Been Kissed. As undercover reporter Barrymore's "high school" teacher, Vartan was an adult-teen dream come true; the movie went on to become Vartan's first Hollywood hit. Vartan was not so lucky, however, with his next Hollywood film, the critically lambasted Madonna vehicle The Next Best Thing (2000).
After he was impeccably cast as Lancelot in the lavish TV miniseries adaptation of The Mists of Avalon (2001), Vartan stayed with TV to play CIA agent Michael Vaughn, ally of Jennifer Garner's double agent Sydney Bristow, on the stylish, critically praised ABC action series Alias (2001). ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- 1992
When a group of student actors travel to a workshop in Dordogne to put on a production of Shakespeare's As You Like It as a summer project, they are as lively and high-spirited a group as one could ask for. While they are there, the young man who has the leading role begins casting cow eyes at the director's wife (Valerie Stroh), and soon she and the boy are having an affair. By the end of the summer, the wife is sufficiently charmed to wonder how she could have gotten into this situation where she deeply loves both men. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Valerie Stroh, Michael Vartan, (more)
- 1991
While contemplating her single state, an unmarried woman writer tosses and turns in bed. Her lover, a doctor, wants her to join him in Paris. On the other hand, she thinks maybe she should end the relationship. All of a sudden, as she lies restless in bed, she is struck with inspiration for three separate stories, which the film shows. In "A Man And Two Women," a married woman who has just given birth to a baby is entertaining a female friend of hers at their home and suggests that the friend and her husband start an affair, since all her energy is tied up in the baby. This suggestion heightens the sexual tension already present among the three players. In "One Another," a married woman gets rid of her husband and chooses to become romantically involved with her brother instead. In "Our Friend Judith," a woman finds a sense of renewal while on vacation on the island of Elba by bedding her handsome hairdresser. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Valerie Stroh, Lambert Wilson, (more)
