Dany Boon

Who is Dany Boon?

Dany Boon is a French comedian who has acted both on the stage and the screen. He takes his stage name from the television show Daniel Boone.

Dany Boon, born to an Algerian father and a French mother from the north of the country, first started his career dubbing cartoons and performing as a mime in the street. In 1992, he was given his first break as a comedian by French television personality Patrick Sébastien, who invited him on his show. From then on Boon began to achieve notoriety with his sketches and his one-man shows.

He was then offered several roles in movies, notably in the film Joyeux Noël that made it on the international scene in 2005.

Boon is deeply attached to his native region, Nord-Pas-de-Calais. In 2003, he made a whole show in the local dialect of ch'ti, also known as Picard. Despite the use of dialectal language, 600,000 copies of the DVD (which included French subtitles) were sold. No previous DVD featuring a one-man show had sold as well in France. In February 2008, he released a film called Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, a comedy based on prejudices held about the region, which went on to break French box-office records. Two weeks after its release the film had already been seen by five million people. After its fourth week this figure had risen to 15 million, and by 11 April, the film had surpassed the viewing audience of La Grande Vadrouille, having been watched by more than 17.4 million people.

He has four sons and a daughter from three different unions. With his first wife, he had Mehdi, his eldest son, born in 1997. With his second wife, Judith Godrèche, he had Noé, born on 4 September 1999. With his third wife, Yael Harris, for whom he converted to Judaism in 2002, he had Eytan, born 23 June 2005; Elia, born 20 December 2006 and Sarah, born 1 March 2010.

In 2008, Boon was the highest-paid actor in European film history, netting 26 million Euro (c. 33 million dollars).

He was the president of the 40th César Awards ceremony.