It was 2005 and the sun was shining out of Marc-André Grondin’s ass. C.R.A.Z.Y., in which Grondin starred as the ‘Z’ in a dysfunctional family of five boys, was the highest-grossing film of the year, earning more than $6 million.

Nominated but passed over for best actor at the 2006 Genies (fellow C.R.A.Z.Y. Michel Côté won), Grondin was front and center at Quebec’s Jutras, winning best actor in the film’s 14-award sweep – it won in every category for which it was nominated. Yes, Quebec went crazy for Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y.

Eighteen months later, Grondin was back on a film set. This time, not as an actor, but as a member of the transportation crew, working as a driver ferrying cast members and delivering bottled water.

‘I had to do something,’ he says, on the phone from his home in Montreal.

It might sound strange that Quebec’s hottest young actor could not find work after such an unqualified hit, but he’s willing to accept part of the blame.

‘I’ve always been difficult with projects,’ says Grondin. ‘Even when I wasn’t working a lot. Before C.R.A.Z.Y., I would go to auditions and walk away. I just wanted to have fun. I wanted to do things I loved. If you don’t love the project, then you’ll be sad later – shooting it for two months and then having to talk about it. If C.R.A.Z.Y. hadn’t been a project I loved, it would be terrible, because that’s all that people want to talk about.

‘After C.R.A.Z.Y., I got scripts, but not many from Quebec. I was in a weird position. I was too young to play some parts, too old for others, and the things I was interested in fell through.’

He did get a supporting role in a low-budget Quebec feature, Karim Hussain’s La belle bête, and a still smaller role in Steven Soderbergh’s Che Guevera biopic Guerilla – but no leads.

Then his C.R.A.Z.Y. past kicked in. Back when he was promoting the film in Spain, in 2006, Grondin heard that a French talent agent wanted to meet him. Laurent Grégoire of Paris-based agency Adéquat had seen the film and offered to represent the actor. Grégoire reps Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci and Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard.

Time passed.

‘I just had to find one production that would trust me with the accent,’ says Grondin. It should be pointed out that, to the French ear, a Québécois accent sticks out like a polar bear at a grizzly convention. But then Grondin was offered a TV movie, Les cerfs-volant. ‘It was a great way to start.’

The French market is bigger than Quebec, but it’s still small. When casting agents heard Grondin’s French French accent, the scripts started rolling in.

Grondin has now done two features in France, Rémi Bezançon’s Le premier jour du reste de ta vie, one of the top-grossing French titles of 2008, and Des fleurs pour tout le monde by Michel Delgado, in which he stars alongside Gérard Depardieu. This fall he returned to Canada for the first time in nearly two years to shoot a feature, Éric Tessier’s thriller 5150, rue des Ormes. It was a reunion with his C.R.A.Z.Y. producer, Pierre Even of Cirrus Communications.

Earlier this month, the Academie des Cesars, which awards France’s version of the Oscars, has included Grondin in the pre-selection of 16 young actors for the title of meilleur espoir – the up-and-comer prize.

But the biggest challenge is yet to come. Grondin is scheduled to be in Louisiana this month prepping for yet another French feature, this one under director Jean-Paul Salomé. The difference is: this one is in English. He plays the lead role in the film with an appropriate name for the 24-year-old: The Chameleon.