François Arnaud isn’t entirely sure where he lives nowadays—or more precisely, where he belongs. The Montreal-born actor is holed up in the Laurentians, in a house he built with a friend during the pandemic, surrounded by whispering pines and the occasional deer wandering by his window. It’s where he often retreats to recharge after performing emotionally demanding roles—most recently, in German Canadian filmmaker Wiebke von Carolsfeld’s upcoming drama Someone’s Daughter, where he plays a man kidnapped along with the criminal lawyer who once defended him against a rape charge. “You feel depleted after a role like that, and you have to find ways to replenish,” he says, the autumn sun streaking the room with molten orange. “I’m glad I have my place in the woods here, but I also don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere by myself. Maybe one day, but the quiet is loud.”

Arnaud has spent recent years in Los Angeles, yet with his sights now set on New York and a heart that still tugs him toward Quebec, “home” is a slippery notion. “It’s a weird time in my life, because I feel like I’ve gotten to know myself more, and I know who I am. And that’s great. But I kind of don’t know where I want to be,” the 40-year-old actor says. “I’ve always enjoyed being everything, everywhere, all at once. But I’m looking for things that make me feel more grounded and to live in a place that mirrors how I feel about the world. And that’s become increasingly difficult.”

Loro Piana look.

That tension between motion and stillness mirrors his career. Since breaking out in Quebec filmmaker Xavier Dolan’s 2009 debut J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother), Arnaud has leapt across genres, languages, and worlds—from the scheming Renaissance courts of the Showtime drama The Borgias to the eerie streets of the NBC supernatural thriller Midnight, Texas, and now, the steamy locker rooms of Crave’s gay hockey romance Heated Rivalry. Given that range, he’s never comfortably settled into one corner of the industry, a restlessness that echoes his nomadic streak.

As a young actor, Arnaud felt the pull from south of the border, drawn to something bigger, louder, messier than the polite restraint of Canadian life. “In the U.S., especially the big cities, there’s something about the extremes that’s appealing and can fuel creativity. It’s a lot of things, but it’s not boring. It’s grittier. It’s edgier. It’s more punk.” But having just turned 40, he admits the thrill has dulled.

Prada look.

 

Increasingly uncomfortable with the political violence in the United States, Arnaud has a newfound appreciation for Canadian culture.

___

“As I get older, the things that I found a bit beige about Canada, I’m like, you know what? Maybe kindness and niceness are underrated.” —François Arnaud

 

He now inhabits a liminal space, geographically and professionally, where uncertainty feels less like a threat and more like an invitation. With a slate of daring indies and subversive dramas ahead, and the sort of wandering soul magazine profiles are made of, he’s letting instinct, not expectation, chart his next chapter. “I don’t have a straight answer for where I’m headed, but those are all the questions populating my brain. I’m trying to embrace this momentary unknown.”

For now, that open-endedness is drawing him back to Canada for work. This past spring, Arnaud was in Toronto filming Heated Rivalry, Jacob Tierney’s series about a secret same-sex romance. Based on Canadian author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers book series, the drama casts Arnaud as Scott Hunter, a hockey star who falls for a male barista. Though a supporting role, the third episode belongs solely to him. “I was reading the script, and I called my agent. I’m like, ‘Are you reading this? I don’t know that I can do this. This feels like porn,’” Arnaud says, laughing.

Hermès coat, trousers, and boots; tank top stylist’s own.

“And then Jacob turns it on its head and it becomes super heartfelt without being cheesy. And it’s just joyous.” That joy is rare and refreshing in queer storytelling, and part of what drew him to the project. Arnaud, who came out publicly as bisexual a few years ago, liked the script’s optimism. “I think gay stories very often come with so much trauma. There’s always AIDS lurking, or the main character has to die, or whatever. There’s like a penance and a heaviness to it,” he says. “Heated Rivalry is charged, but it’s not shallow. It’s escapism in the best possible way. I dabble in a lot of darker shit, so it’s nice to do something hopeful.”

Off-screen, Arnaud’s learned to live with that same unapologetic freedom. When he announced he was bisexual in an Instagram story during the pandemic, it made headlines—but for him, it was simply about being honest. “I’d already moved past it in my private life, and I wanted my public life to reflect that.” While he wasn’t looking to invite conversation about his private life, he wanted to feel aligned with who he really was. “I didn’t feel ashamed about it, but for me, lying about it felt like a shameful act. I wanted to be in line with my values. This is what I believe in, and it’s more important than whatever effect it has on my career.

That same refusal to live out of sync with himself guides his professional choices too. He opts for roles that challenge or fulfil him rather than ones that just look shiny on his IMDB page. “I had a moment recently where people were telling me to just wait around for the next big thing. I’m always up for bigger things, but the industry has shrunk,” he says.

Louis Vuitton look; Longines Ultra-Chron Carbon watch.

“If someone sends me a script for a cool indie that I love, and there’s a great role in it, I can’t say, ‘Oh no, I’m going to wait at home because this or that might happen.’” And so, Fucktoys, the absurdist debut feature from Billions actress Annapurna Sriram, where she portrays a young sex worker seeking to break a curse by raising $1,000 for psychics. Arnaud plays one of her clients: a problematic, possibly sociopathic DJ. “I like complicated parts,” Arnaud says. “They force me to have empathy for people for whom I wouldn’t have in real life.”

That appetite for complexity goes way back. Arnaud accompanied his mother to plays as heady as Cyrano de Bergerac when he was as young as eight. “I wanted to do grown-up stuff—even if I didn’t understand it.” He honed that curiosity in amateur theatre and eventually the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal, where he first crossed paths with Dolan. The young director, then just 17, approached Arnaud after one of his plays. According to Arnaud, Dolan handed him a script and said, “Read this. We’re going to go to Cannes with this.”

Dior look.

Turns out Dolan was right. J’ai tué ma mère, the Oedipal coming-of-age drama he directed and stars in, marked him as a major new voice in cinema. Meanwhile, Arnaud’s charming, magnetic performance as Antonin—the emotionally grounded boyfriend to Dolan’s tempestuous teen protagonist—immediately drew attention. Major auditions started falling into his lap. He recalls doing screen tests for a role in the Pirates of the Caribbean series with Johnny Depp, sitting in waiting rooms with Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds for a Bourne film, and multiple callbacks for a role in a galaxy far, far away. “I auditioned like eight times for Star Wars,” Arnaud says, adding he was vying for Oscar Isaac’s role in the sequel trilogy. “They kept bringing me back, and they never gave me a part.”

___

François Arnaud inhabits a liminal space, geographically and professionally, where uncertainty feels less like a threat and more like an invitation. With a slate of daring indies and subversive dramas ahead, he’s letting instinct, not expectation, chart his next chapter.

He now plays the Hollywood game with clearer eyes. He still shows up for the big auditions—“I’m certainly throwing my hat in the ring,” he says—but his heart lies elsewhere. His career feels less like a rising star and more like a constellation: bright, scattered, and impossible to predict. He’ll appear in Guillaume Lonergan’s upcoming HBO Max miniseries Alice about France’s Alice Guy Blaché, the world’s first female filmmaker. He also stars in In Transit, Jaclyn Bethany’s slow-burning indie about a barmaid who forms an unexpected connection with a painter in the midst of an existential crisis. And he’s just booked another hockey project: “It’s a very straight bro hockey film,” he says, laughing, “where I play a cutthroat character.”

Boss x Steiff coat.

He admits he’d love to land a role in a series that lasts several years—a home base, for once—but he’s not rushing it. In an era of AI disruption, studio reshuffling, and looming film tariffs, uncertainty is the only constant. Fortunately, he’s built for it. With his range and quiet adaptability, he can weather the storm. The industry—hell, the world—may keep shifting underfoot, but he’s the kind of actor who never loses balance.

Arnaud may not know where he’s going, but right now, he’s exactly where he needs to be: in the present, doing the work, and enjoying the ride. “I just try to be humble and grateful for the work that I get, and I try to enjoy every moment, every minute of the process. And I think it’s made me a better actor.”

École de Pensée coat, tank, and trousers; Louis Vuitton shoes; Parts of Four earring; socks stylist’s own.

The post <i>Heated Rivalry</i>‘s François Arnaud Is Hollywood’s Quiet Chameleon appeared first on NUVO.

About a decade ago, as was the custom after Jean Paul Gaultier’s shows, I was standing in a lineup on the designer’s Paris runway. As I patiently awaited my turn to interview fashion’s original enfant terrible, I was tapped on the shoulder by an impeccably dressed young man. He humbly introduced himself as Thierry-Maxime Loriot, a fellow Canadian and former model who was going to be curating a retrospective exhibit of Gaultier’s work at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). “As if!” I cynically thought to myself, incredulous that anyone in their early 30s with movie star good looks could possibly have the gravitas to curate an exhibition on a mighty legend like Gaultier. “Must be JP’s boyfriend,” I silently speculated. Still, I agreed to help with any archival material we might have in our Fashion Television library, scratching my head at how someone who’d just wrapped a career in modelling could possibly get such a plum gig with such a fine museum.

Hermès.

In the ensuing months, I learned that Thierry-Maxime Loriot was indeed the real deal. Under the direction of Nathalie Bondil, the brilliant director general and chief curator of MMFA, Loriot concocted The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, an entertaining and enlightening exhibit that travelled to four continents and 12 cities after its Montreal opening in 2011. Loriot’s curatorial debut earned him a reputation as one of pop culture’s greatest modern storytellers, and it fuelled the fires of a new generation desperately seeking inspiration and a wondrous window into the way things were. “It’s more like a fairy tale,” says Loriot of the experience, who went on to curate another Gaultier show, Love Is Love: Wedding Bliss for All à la Jean Paul Gaultier, as well as exhibitions for the artistic Viktor&Rolf, famed photographer Peter Lindbergh, and most recently, a Quebec couture exhibit and a grand retrospective of the incomparable designer and showman Thierry Mugler, entitled Thierry Mugler: Couturissime.

Left and right: Louis Vuitton. Middle: Fendi blazer; Maison Margiela T-shirt; Rolex GMT-Master watch Ref. 1675 with Pepsi bezel.

Loriot’s theatrical approach is often filled with surprises. He’s not interested in staging shows in a conventional manner. “I don’t want people to just love the subject and the exhibition. I want them to adore it, and talk about it, and be fascinated by it,” Loriot enthuses. “It’s fantastic the influence an exhibit can have on people. Maybe a 12-year-old that visits the exhibit now will want to become a photographer, or a stylist, or fashion editor, or a video director. I think it’s important to show what creativity is about.”

Gucci sweater; Maison Margiela T-shirt; BOSS pants and belt; Rolex GMT-Master watch.

Accessibility is key for Loriot. He’s adamant that museum fashion exhibits should be easy to understand and never too esoteric. “I don’t do my work for the people in the fashion industry,” he points out. “For me, it’s more important to do it for people who wouldn’t normally go to a fashion exhibition, like my father.” Both Loriot’s parents are lawyers, and as diehard academics, they weren’t into fashion and entertainment at all. “It wasn’t their dream that their son becomes a model and works in fashion,” Loriot confides. “And I can understand that it must be quite frightening for a parent when your kid wants to work in the fashion industry, and you think that it’s only about drugs, and addiction, and alcohol, and scandals with photographers. I always considered it a real job, so I was performing it like a doctor would perform his duties.”

Thierry-Maxime Loriot with his dog Vladimir. Loriot wears Tiger of Sweden jacket; 3.1 Phillip Lim pants, available at Simons.

A curious and artistic child who was drawn to beauty and watched music videos relentlessly, Loriot fondly reminisces about his parents encouraging him and his siblings to research the various cities the family would visit on holidays. Loriot developed a passion for architecture and decided to move from his native Quebec City to study the subject in Montreal. But shortly after arriving, his career aspirations made an about-face. Discovered by a modelling agency, he was sent to Paris where he met with Mario Testino. Before he knew it, Loriot found himself travelling to London to do a Burberry campaign with Kate Moss. The next decade proved to be a great educational experience as he worked with a plethora of popular brands, designers, and photographers. Unconsciously, he was laying the foundation for what was to come when he eventually decided to turn his lifelong love of art and research into something more stable back home. He started an internship at the MMFA and almost immediately impressed Bondil. “I noticed his seriousness,” she recalls, “so I decided to hire him to help me with the exhibition Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John and Yoko, [which opened] in 2009. He was rigorous and determined to learn.” Part of Bondil’s genius is that she’s open minded; she believes in hiring people from different backgrounds because this “gives more oxygen to the field,” as she puts it.

Louis Vuitton.

Loriot claims there isn’t a recipe for making an exhibition work, but there’s no question that his sensitivity to the artists he chooses to work with have made him a kind of rock star curator to be honoured with the Vanguard Award from the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards (CAFA) later this year. And in this age of Instagram, when so many people are amateur curators—editing and assembling a dizzying variety of lifestyle options—Loriot is viewed as a curatorial trailblazer. “For me, it’s very playful,” he reflects. “I do my work very seriously, but I’m not that serious in the way I work.” His grounded and humanistic approach may also be related to a scary episode he experienced a couple of years ago. Loriot had a heart attack on a flight from Singapore to Paris, the result of a rare virus. “Now more than ever, I often think I have a responsibility to help people, and do the right thing when I choose a project and work with others,” he says. “But at the end of the day, all we want to do is entertain—to present in a very democratic, open way. I often say, ‘We don’t save lives.’ For me, I just feel that I’m having fun with what I do.” 

Grooming by Michael Goyette for Folio Montreal using Oribe. 

_________

Never miss a story. Sign up for NUVO’s weekly newsletter, here.

The post Thierry-Maxime Loriot and the Art of Fashion appeared first on NUVO.

Grece Ghanem’s voice, sporadic giggle included, is innocent and feminine. It suits her five-foot-two frame—although you might not guess these details by looking at her Instagram feed, @greceghanem. “When people meet me, they say, ‘Oh my god, you’re so petite!’ ” Savvy iPhone angles coupled with supermodel poses may give the illusion that she’s much taller, but it’s Ghanem’s serendipitous story and quinquagenarian chutzpah that render her larger than life.

At 54, Ghanem is a social media phenomenon. (Her first name, pronounced “Grace”, is actually a misspelling on her identity card.) The numbers are there in black and white: nearly 72,000 followers on Instagram—and counting. While a picture is worth a thousand words, Ghanem’s photos can rake in over 4,000 likes, which in Instagram currency translates to dollars and cents. Campaigns for Sephora, Reitmans, Kérastase, Browns x Adidas, and a handful of collaborations, such as the recurrent one with Club Monaco, have ensued and fans—or in Instagram-speak, followers—can expect more in 2019.

Salvatore Ferragamo leather jumpsuit and shoes; Nonie blouse.

Ghanem immigrated to Canada from Lebanon with her then–nine-year-old daughter in 2005. What started out as a mother-and-daughter hobby in the summer of 2016 has snowballed into a tiny enterprise. Cheyenne, now 23 and a graduate of McGill’s finance program, is her mother’s photographer, creative director, and manager, posting photos, answering e-mails, and finding “the good angles”. Last September, Ghanem was interviewed by Vogue, the holy grail of fashion.

But life hasn’t always been floral Gucci pantsuits and oversized Balenciaga sneakers. In Ghanem’s war-torn homeland, she lived in constant fear. “When I was living in the dorm [at the American University of Beirut], I didn’t know if I would make it to see my family on the weekend. I didn’t want this future for my daughter. This is why I moved to Canada.”

COS top; Hermès skirt; Gucci thong sandals, available at Nordstrom.

And when in Canada, her master’s in microbiology didn’t translate to the Canadian system. Having subbed for a fitness instructor in Beirut, she turned to Montreal’s YMCA and completed a one-year program to become a personal trainer. “I had to take care of myself and my daughter,” recalls Ghanem. “I had to start again from scratch.”

One result of all that working out is Ghanem’s compact, tightly sculpted physique. Beneath the bold fuchsia chin-to-ankle dresses, voluminous sleeves, and layers of mixed patterns is a body that would make Madonna proud. And it is Ghanem’s self-expression that resonates with fellow ’grammers, many of whom are much younger than she is. “It’s very motivating, challenging. The more I get followers, the more I feel the pressure. I feel like I have to keep on working and inspiring. A big number of my followers range from their late 20s to 40s.”

Loewe coat, available at Nordstrom; Nonie blouse; BOSS skirt; Marc Cain ankle boots; Hermès earrings. Artwork by Bruno Leydet, Yatagan, 2017.

Coach ruffle blouse, vest, and skirt.

Stella McCartney blazer, top, and pants, available at Nordstrom; Breguet Tradition Dame 7038 watch in 18-karat rose gold, bezel set with 68 brilliant-cut diamonds, mother-of-pearl dial off-set at 12 o’clock, and white alligator strap.blazer, top, and pants, available at Nordstrom; Breguet Tradition Dame 7038 watch in 18-karat rose gold, bezel set with 68 brilliant-cut diamonds, mother-of-pearl dial off-set at 12 o’clock, and white alligator strap.

The post Grece Under Fire appeared first on NUVO.

Gear up in style with this season’s accoutrements.

Art Director: Mark Reynolds

Special thanks to Northlands Golf Course and Hollyburn Country Club.

_________

Never miss a story. Sign up for NUVO’s weekly newsletter.

The post Country Clubbing appeared first on NUVO.

Our style selections for spring 2017.

Jennifer Torosian jacket; BOSS dress; Fendi boots.

Fendi ensemble.

Valentino dress; Michael Kors Collection handbag and shoes.

Gucci dress.

Dior coat and dress.

Hair and makeup, using M.A.C cosmetics: Tami El Sombati.
Model: Rachel S. for Elite Model Management.
Art Director: Mark Reynolds.

_________

Never miss a story. Sign up for NUVO’s weekly newsletter.

The post Younger Reflections appeared first on NUVO.

The iconic coat’s enduring autumnal appeal.

Hair: Matthew Lill for P1M/Bang Salon
Makeup: Natalie Ventola for P1M using M.A.C. cosmetics
Models: Cassandra for Elmer Olsen Model Management and Michael for Sutherland Models
Art Director: Mark Reynolds

The post In the Trenches appeared first on NUVO.