Gad Elmaleh Canadian Comedian Born 1971 in Casablanca

Early life

Gad Elmaleh was born on 19 April 1971 in Casablanca, Morocco, into a Sephardic Jewish family, and grew up speaking both Moroccan Arabic and French. As a boy he sometimes introduced his father, a mime, on stage by holding up a placard. His brother Arié is an actor and singer, and his sister Judith works as an actress and stage director.

He studied at the École Maïmonide and the Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca. His family moved to Canada when he was 17, and he spent four years studying political science in Montreal, at the Université de Montréal and at McGill, without finishing a degree. In 1992 he left for Paris to train in drama at the Cours Florent.

Career

Elmaleh built his reputation first on stage. His debut one-man show, Décalages, was performed at the Palais des glaces in 1997 and told the story of his own path from Morocco through Montreal to Paris. The follow-up, La Vie Normale, was his first show at the Olympia and the first to run longer than two hours, and it was released on DVD in January 2001. His 2005 show L'autre c'est moi leaned more on improvisation and on exchanges with the audience. He played it in Montreal and on Broadway at the Beacon Theatre, then in Casablanca, and in 2007 took it across France, Belgium and Switzerland. The recording sold about 1.5 million copies. His show Papa est en haut premiered in Montreal in July 2007 at the Just for Laughs festival, and he later sold out seven consecutive weeks at the Olympia in Paris. He is often credited with bringing the American stand-up style to French audiences.

Screen work started early. His first credit on record is the 1986 programme Surprise Sur Prise. In the 1990s he appeared in Hi Cousin!, directed by Merzak Allouache, and in Man Is a Woman and Train of Life, both in 1998. He played Dov in La Vérité si je mens ! 2 in 2001, and the character Chouchou, which he had created on stage, became the basis of the film Chouchou in 2003, on which he is also listed as a writer. In 2006 he was in the comedies The Valet and Priceless, the latter opposite Audrey Tautou.

In 2009 he wrote, directed and starred in Coco, which opened in first place in France, Belgium and Switzerland. He took a dramatic part as Schmuel Weismann in The Round Up in 2010. A string of international roles followed. He played Detective Tisserant in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris in 2011, appeared in Jack and Jill the same year, and had a cameo in The Dictator in 2012. In 2013 he took a role in the Michel Gondry film Mood Indigo, and in 2016 he was in Pattaya. He has also lent his voice to the French version of several animated films, including the role of Gru in the Despicable Me series. His most recent credit as a director is Stay With Us, from 2022.

From 2015 he spent time in the United States, where he toured with a show called Oh My Gad and settled in New York for a period. He worked with an English teacher to write his English-language material, which was scripted rather than improvised. He appeared on Jerry Seinfeld's web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee in 2013, and the two became friends. His stand-up special Gad Gone Wild was released on Netflix in January 2017, with an English-language special following in March 2018, and in 2019 he starred in the Netflix series Huge in France.

Recognition

In 2004 he received an award from SACEM in France for best one-man show, and in 2006 the French press association gave him a Crystal Globe, again for a one-man show, La Vie Normale. TF1 viewers voted him funniest man of the year in January 2007. He has been honoured by the French Order of Arts and Letters and by the National Order of Quebec.

Public roles

Elmaleh performs in several languages. In Morocco he has mixed French and Arabic in his shows, and in Israel he has added some Hebrew. The press has sometimes called him the "Seinfeld of France", a comparison he described as flattering, since both draw on everyday life for their material.