Jessica Paré

Jessica Paré
Paré in September 2009
Born	December 5, 1982 (1982-12-05) (age 28) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1999–present
Spouse	Joseph M. Smith (2007–2010, separated)

Jessica Paré (born December 5, 1982) is a Canadian film and television actress. She has appeared in the films Stardom (2000), Lost and Delirious (2001), Wicker Park (2004), Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), and co-starred in the vampire horror-comedy Suck (2009). She plays Megan on the fourth season of the American TV series Mad Men.

Early life

Paré was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the daughter of Anthony Paré, the head of the education department at McGill University, and Louise Mercier, a conference interpreter. She grew up in the Montreal neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and has three brothers.^[1] Paré is bilingual, speaking both English and French.^[1] Her family is Catholic.^[2]

Paré's parents were both actors; her father was a drama teacher and toured with a theatre company. Her mother acted in amateur productions. Paré would watch her father at rehearsals as a child, and became interested in acting herself when helping him learn his lines for The Tempest.^[3] She attended Villa Maria, a private Catholic girl's high school in Montreal. Paré studied drama at TheatreWorks, and appeared in over half a dozen amateur theatre productions as a teenager, including a role as Maid Marian in Robin Hood.^[4]

Career

Paré landed a small role in Bonanno: A Godfather's Story, a mafia TV movie, during her final year in high school, which convinced her to pursue acting as a career.^[5] She also found small roles in an episode of the horror/teen TV series Big Wolf on Campus and in the French film En Vacances in 1999. She dropped out of the fine-arts program at Montreal's Dawson College and pursued acting for two years.^[1] At one point, she worked as a photographer's assistant on automotive photo shoots.^[6]

After auditioning for a bit part for the independent film Stardom (2000), director Denys Arcand chose Paré to star in the film.^[1] She played a naive ice hockey player propelled to international stardom as a supermodel, co-starring with Dan Aykroyd. The comedic satire closed the 2000 Cannes Film Festival with mixed reviews from critics.^[7] Paré became the Canadian film industry’s "it girl" following the release of the film.^[8] She was voted one of the 25 most beautiful people in Canada by a Canadian magazine, but she did not take the title very seriously.^[9]

Paré next starred in Lost and Delirious (2001), opposite Piper Perabo, in a story of two young lovers set in a girls' boarding school. The film was the English-language debut of director Léa Pool, and debuted to positive reviews at the Sundance Film Festival.^[10] Paré appeared in the miniseries Random Passage in 2002, based on a series of award-winning novels by Bernice Morgan, and set in Newfoundland in the 1800s.^[11] Also that year, she appeared in the miniseries Napoléon as the emperor’s mistress. She had a cameo as a pop singer in Deepa Mehta's Bollywood/Hollywood, and starred in the girl gang thriller Posers.^{[citation needed]} Paré next appeared in the CTV miniseries The Death and Life of Nancy Eaton (2003), directed by Jerry Ciccoritti, in the title role of murdered heiress Nancy Eaton.^{[citation needed]}

Paré made her Hollywood film debut in the 2004 feature Wicker Park, directed by Paul McGuigan, as Josh Hartnett's fiancee. Paré starred in Lives of the Saints that year, with Sophia Loren and Kris Kristofferson, a TV miniseries set in the 1960s. She was in the mockumentary See This Movie, with Seth Meyers and John Cho, and had a role on the teen drama series Jack & Bobby that year. The WB television series was about two brothers, one who grows up to be President of the United States; Paré's character, Courtney Benedict, grows up to be First Lady.

Paré shot the CBS TV pilot Protect and Serve with Dean Cain in 2007.^[12] She filmed the independent French-Canadian romantic comedy Jusqu'à toi that year. Paré co-starred as Liza, along with Justin Bartha, Mélanie Laurent and Billy Boyd.^[13] She had a small role in The Trotsky, a comedy filmed in Montreal in late-2008, directed by Jacob Tierney.^[14] She also filmed Suck, beginning in November 2008, a vampire horror-comedy written and directed by Rob Stefaniuk.^[15] Paré learned to play the bass guitar for the role.^[16] Suck premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Contemporary World Cinema programme. She was nominated for a 2010 Canadian Comedy Award for best female performance in film for the role.^[17]

Paré filmed Red Coat Justice by Wyeth Clarkson in 2009.^[8] She played a groupie opposite Craig Robinson in the 2010 comedy Hot Tub Time Machine.^[18] Paré appears in the Canadian comedy Peepers, written and directed by Seth W. Owen, along with Joe Cobden, Paul Spence, and Ricky Mabe. The film, about pleasures in voyeurism, competed in the Just for Laughs film festival in Montreal in July 2010.^[19] She plays Megan Calvet, Don Draper's fiance and secretary, on the television series Mad Men.^[20]

In 2011, Paré appeared in '"Beholder", alongside Elaine Hendrix, Michael McMillian, and Rupak Ginn. The short film, directed by Nisha Ganatra, premiered as part of the ITVS/PBS series, FutureStates.^[21] She starred in The Mountie, a western about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, filmed in a remote location outside of Whitehorse, Yukon.^[22] Paré also starred in the comedic short, "Sorry, Rabbi", directed by Mark Slutsky.^[23]

Personal life

She married American writer and producer Joe Smith in 2007, but the couple have separated.^[24][25]

Filmography

• Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999), Rosalie Profacies
• Stardom (2000), Tina Menzhal
• En Vacances (2000), Carole Beaumont
• Lost and Delirious (2001), Victoria "Tori" Moller
• Random Passage (2002), Annie Vincent (age 15) – TV miniseries
• Napoléon (2002), Eléonore Denuelle – TV miniseries
• Bollywood/Hollywood (2002), Kimberly Stewart
• Posers (2002), Adria
• The Death and Life of Nancy Eaton (2003), Nancy Eaton – TV miniseries
• Wicker Park (2004), Rebecca
• Lives of the Saints (2004) Rita Amherst – TV miniseries
• See This Movie (2004), Samantha Brown
• Jack & Bobby (2004–2005), Courtney Benedict – TV series
• Protect and Serve (2007), Hope Cooke – TV pilot
• Life (2007) – TV series, in the episode "The Fallen Woman"
• Caniformia (2009), The Waxing Lady
• Shoe at Your Foot / Every Jack Has a Jill (French: Jusqu'à Toi) (2009), Liza
• Suck (2009), Jennifer
• The Trotsky (2009), Laura
• Peepers (2010), Helen
• Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), Tara
• Red Coat Justice (2010), Amethyst
• Mad Men (2010), Megan Calvet – TV series
• "Beholder" (2011), Sasha – Short film
• The Mountie (2011), Amethyst
• "Sorry, Rabbi" (2011, Marie-Helene – Short film

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Kirkland, Bruce (September 6, 2000). "Fresh face of Stardom". Jam!. Retrieved on October 2, 2007.
2. ^ Hochberg, Mina (18 October 2010). [1]. AMCtv.com.
3. ^ "Kaleidoscope". October 19, 2000. McGill Reporter. Retrieved on October 2, 2007.
4. ^ Johnson, Brian D. (June 5, 2000). "Cannes Film Festival 2000". Maclean's. Retrieved on October 25, 2010.
5. ^ "Flare.com Asks… Jessica Paré". December 2004. Flare. Retrieved on October 6, 2007. Wayback Machine archive
6. ^ Hochberg, Mina. "Q&A - Jessica Paré (Megan)", AMC website, October 17, 2010. WebCitation archive.
7. ^ Buchanan, Jason. "Jessica Paré Biography". Allmovie. Retrieved on July 10, 2010.
8. ^ ^{a b} Wilner, Norman (September 1, 2009). "Jessica Paré". Now. Vol. 29, No. 1. Retrieved on September 6, 2009.
9. ^ Anderson, Jason (October 26, 2000). "Shooting stars". Eye Weekly. Retrieved on October 25, 2010.
10. ^ Hays, Matthew (June 7, 2001). "Suddenly, this summer". Montreal Mirror. Retrieved on October 3, 2007.
11. ^ Valade, Claire (Fall 2000). "From sea to sea: Montreal". Take One. Retrieved on October 25, 2010.
12. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (March 14, 2007). "Dean Cain serving in CBS' "Protect" squad". Reuters. Retrieved on September 19, 2011.
13. ^ Goldstein, Gregg (August 29, 2007). "Four fitted for bilingual 'Shoe'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved on October 4, 2007.
14. ^ Bailey, Patricia (September 29, 2008). "Tierneys team up on Trotsky". Playback. Retrieved on November 10, 2008.
15. ^ Vlessing, Etan (November 12, 2008). "McDowell, Pare, Foley sink teeth into 'Suck'", The Hollywood Reporter, November 13, 2008.
16. ^ Demara, Bruce (December 5, 2008). "Blood, guts and rock 'n' roll". Toronto Star. Retrieved on December 10, 2008.
17. ^ Less Than Kind leads comedy nominees". CBC News. June 22, 2010. Retrieved on July 4, 2010.
18. ^ Burr, Ty (March 26, 2010). "'Hot Tub Time Machine' movie review". The Boston Globe. Retrieved on June 28, 2010.
19. ^ Griffith, John (July 10, 2010). "A lean, mean laugh machine". The Montreal Gazette. Retrieved on July 11, 2010.
20. ^ Corliss, Richard (August 20, 2010). "Mad Men Watch: Weekend Update". Tuned In. Time. Retrieved on August 20, 2010.
21. ^ Ganatra, Nisha (March 19, 2011). "On Location: The making of "Beholder" (Part 2)". After Ellen. Retrieved on September 19, 2011.
22. ^ MacDonald, Gayle (June 29, 2011). "With 'The Mountie,' Wyeth Clarkson gives a Canadian icon a reboot". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved on September 19, 2011.
23. ^ Kelly, Brendan (June 17, 2011). "Did you hear the one about ...?". The Gazette. Retrieved on September 19, 2011.
24. ^ Barnard, Linda (October 25, 2010). "Mad Men: Paré mad about playing Megan". Toronto Star. Retrieved on October 30, 2010
25. ^ Parent, Marie-Joelle (October 25, 2010). "Cdn beauty breaks out in ‘Mad Men’". Toronto Sun. Retrieved on October 25, 2010.

References

• "Jessica Paré". Encore Entertainment. Retrieved on October 3, 2007.
• Loos, Ted (November 2000). "Jessica Pare". Interview.

External links

• Jessica Paré at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
Name	Paré, Jessica
Alternative names
Short description	television and film actress
Date of birth	December 5, 1982
Place of birth	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Date of death
Place of death