Raymond Bouchard – La Grande seduction

Quebec actor Raymond Bouchard has received his first Genie nom for his performance in Jean-Francois Pouliot’s comedy La Grande seduction. Bouchard plays Germain Lesage, the villager from Saint-Marie-la-Mauderne who leads his townsfolk into luring the unwitting Dr. Lewis into settling there.

The 59-year-old Bouchard’s role also earned him a Jutra nomination, but he lost out to Serge Theriault, who won for Gaz Bar Blues.

Bouchard won a 1990 Gemeaux Award for best actor in a drama series for his work in L’Or et le papier. Five nominations later, the thesp won a 2003 Gemeaux for supporting actor in a comedy teleroman for an ep of Annie et ses hommes. More recently, Bouchard plays a hotel-owning former hockey player in the Radio-Canada series Le Bleu du ciel.

Remy Girard – Les Invasion barbares

Fifty-three-year-old Quebec actor Remy Girard has the distinction of being nominated for two Genies for the same role. Girard was given a nod in 1987 for his role as the womanizing professor Remy in Denys Arcand’s Le Declin de l’empire americain, and in the sort-of sequel Les Invasions barbares, Remy, dying of cancer, becomes the main focus. Girard creates a character facing the end with a great deal of anger until his family and friends arrive.

In a 30-year career, Girard has been nominated seven previous times at the Genies, winning three years in a row: for supporting actor in Les Portes tournantes (1989) and Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal (1990) and for lead actor in Amoureux Fou (1991). He has also won three Gemeaux.

Girard is a regular in the Les Boys films, and also had a supporting role in Seraphin: un homme et son peche, for which he was nominated for a Jutra.

Philip Seymour Hoffman – Owning Mahowny

Philip Seymour Hoffman is nominated for his first Genie for his role as Dan Mahowny in director Richard Kwietniowski’s Owning Mahowny. The New York actor plays an assistant bank manager who tries to engineer a scam involving his bank and an Atlantic City casino, through which he stands to pocket $10 million. The role is based on the real-life Brian Molony, who attempted the biggest one-man bank fraud in Canadian history.

The cherubic 36-year-old has built an impressive career on conflicted characters on the outs with society. His resume includes Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski, Happiness, Magnolia, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Almost Famous, Punch-Drunk Love, 25th Hour, Cold Mountain and Along Came Polly. This year he is reportedly slated to play author Truman Capote in the Hollywood biopic Capote.

Robert Lepage – La Face cachee de la lune

Robert Lepage is probably the biggest surprise among this year’s best actor nominees, if only because he is better known as a filmmaker. But add on his credits in design, the theater and performance art, and you have a true artistic chameleon.

The 46-year-old Quebec City native, who wrote and directed La Face…, is getting his first Genie nom in the area of performance. In the film, he takes on the dual roles of brothers Philippe and Andre, siblings who couldn’t have less in common, but who try to rebuild their relationship after their mother dies.

Lepage has previously been nominated for six Genies in the writing and directing categories, and he won in 1996 for direction and direction of a first feature for Le Confessional.

He is currently collaborating with Cirque de Soleil on its new Las Vegas show.

Barry Pepper – The Snow Walker

Barry Pepper, a native of Campbell River, B.C., is nominated for his role as Charlie Halliday in Charles Martin Smith’s The Snow Walker. In playing Halliday, a cocky pilot who crashes his plane carrying a young Inuit woman in the middle of the Arctic, Pepper is charged with showing how an experience can change a person forever.

The 33-year-old Pepper made his mark with supporting roles in several high-profile Hollywood projects. His breakthrough came as a bible-quoting sniper in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. He also starred in the Billy Crystal-helmed cabler 61*. He is slated to appear next as the lead in the feature White on White, and as the late, great NASCAR racer in the MOW 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story. It is Pepper’s first Genie nomination.

Playback Picks

* Remy Girard: LRB, SD, IE

* Barry Pepper: PV, MD

* Philip Seymour Hoffman: LB