WTF: Xavier Dolan Stars in the Quebec Dub of 'The Emoji Movie'

The project sees him reunite with 'Mommy' actress Anne Dorval

BY Josiah HughesPublished Jul 28, 2017

Few people enjoy playing with the highbrow/lowbrow divide quite like Xavier Dolan. When he's not premiering his art films at Cannes, he's publicly declaring his love for Blink-182. Falling firmly into the low camp, he's also provided the voice for Le Monde Secret des Emojis, which is the Québécois dub of The Emoji Movie.

We've been poking fun at the dumb smartphone flick since it was first announced in 2015, and today (July 28) the film has finally debuted in theatres. With its arrival comes a truly impressive three percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

That didn't stop Dolan from lending his voice talents to the project. Speaking with La Presse last week, the actor and director (who has been dubbing English movies in French since he was a child) revealed that he was deeply excited to work on the project.

Here's a rough English translation of what he said about the film:

It is a universe that is interesting because we take it for granted that emojis are the icons we use every day to punctuate a text message or an emotion. And they live in a city where they are confined to experiencing the same emotion and doing the same thing. So the helicopter is a helicopter. The pile of shit is a bunch of crap. Whoever laughs is always laughing, and so on.

And he who is blase is always blase of everything, whereas he feels that he has in him all sorts of emotions like emotion, sadness, nostalgia, laughter and pleasure. In addition to having difficulty expressing the emotions he feels, he is forbidden to feel them. We finally decide that because it is different, it is abnormal. I think it's a metaphor that's pretty clear [laughing]. In fact, it's always in children's movies, and even in other movies, we always talk about the same thing, but we never clearly explain that "thing".


When asked what emoji represents him most in real life, Dolan answered that it was a toss up between a Christmas tree and an eggplant.

According to a Wikipedia listing for the French dub of the film, Le Monde Secret des Emojis also saw Dolan reteam with his Mommy star Anne Dorval, who provided additional voices. As of press time, it's unclear who played the Québécois merde emoji.
 

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