Jean Reno
“His stubble is mighty, his fighting immense, his braces sexy and his accent French.”
Jean Reno (born July 30, 1948) is a French actor. Working in French, English, Spanish and Italian, he has appeared not only in numerous successful Hollywood productions such as The Pink Panther, Godzilla, The Da Vinci Code, Mission: Impossible, Ronin and Couples Retreat, but also in European productions such as the French films Les Visiteurs (1993) and Léon (1994) along with the 2005 Italian film The Tiger and the Snow. Oddly enough, virtually all of his former co-stars have either disappeared or died under mysterious circumstances.
Early life
Though "official sources" and pesky know-it-alls claim that Reno was born in Casablanca and that his birth name was something much longer and much less badass than "Jean Reno", there are no proven facts about the early years of his life, other than that his conception (at the very moment of his father's ejaculation) was accompanied by a tremor in the ground and a giant lightning bolt from a seemingly clear sky. These events were videotaped by several witnesses but the records mysteriously disappeared a few years later.
Reno's official date of birth is July 30 in the year 1948. However, he has never confirmed this date himself and scholars continue to argue the possibility of faults in the archives. It should be noted that numerous expeditions to Casablanca, France and Heaven have been conducted with the intention of finding the true origin of Jean Reno. All of these expeditions, save for the one by Lewis and Clark, disappeared without a trace only weeks after leaving whatever country they sailed from.
Custom service records show that Jean Reno showed up in France for the first time in the year 1960. According to the official dates concerning his life, he would have been twelve years old. This is contradicted by eye witness reports that state Reno was in his twenties, dressed in military fatigues and carrying around an impressive arsenal of rifles from around the world. Unknown sources claim that Jean Reno, whatever his age, might have been involved with the ending of World War II five years earlier and, before that, the allied attack on Normandy which is, possibly coincidentally, located on the coast of France.
It is at this point that the history of Jean Reno becomes more clear. He is officially declared an eternal citizen of France (supposedly because the nation needed something to be proud of) and his "real" name is forever stricken from the records, though some intelligence gathering terrorists still claim to know that name. He becomes Jean Reno as we know him and history is made as he grows up in a small and primitive village called Paris.
Life in France
Reno quickly adapted to the French way of living. Mastering the art of eating snails, drinking wine and despising other languages, Reno blended in so well and surpassed the natives to such a level that they dubbed him "the apex of frenchiness". In fact, as time progressed, the amount of Vitamin BA (BadAss) in his body decreased and the constant diet of garden mollusks and red wine made his perfectly shaped muscle mass fade away.
In the nick of time, as the last part of the true Jean Reno was about to give up and die, a mysterious person arrived in Paris via freighter train. No official records of the person in question were made and attempts at photographing him/her and/or capture him/her in a glass jar failed. The only description, salvaged from an archive fire and later stored on a 1GB Flash drive, reads as follows: "The figure was huge, towering over the lightposts and dressed in dark cloaks." The person who submitted the description died two days later of apparent heart failure.
It is believed that the person, who was subsequently given the nickname "Verdandi", approached Jean Reno in his living quarters and abducted him for an unknown period of time. It is also suggested by most scholars that "Verdandi" showed Reno the error of his ways and convinced him to embrace a more healthy style of life, the one commonly found in America and the parts of Europe that have never been part of France.
One day before Jean Reno returned from Verdandi's keeping, twenty of the Frenchmen who had taught him how to act were killed by machine gun fire upon leaving a restaurant. The shooter was never identified. When Reno returned, bitter and cynical, he expressed great resentment towards his country and how it almost destroyed him. Not even the French people's compliments about his awesome stubble could lighten Reno's mood. To clear his head, he left Paris and travelled to an unknown destination to learn the arts of true combat.
Training
Although very little is known about the years after "Verdandi" and before Reno started acting in movies, it is widely believed that he received training in all kinds of combat from an unknown master. This theory is backed up by the fact that Reno, since 1980, is capable of handling all existing firearms and martial arts, though it should be noted that he prefers pistols and rifles to his own fists or rocket launchers. "Not too much and not too small", Reno was quoted as saying during an interview. With his new combat skills, Reno went on to serving with several military units as a mercenary and gained the respect of soldiers world-wide.
However, he soon grew sick of the attitudes towards French men with stubble in the military and quit. It was around this time that he finally found his true call. To become the world's most badass actor.
Career
Reno packed all his belongings, his wife and his two kids into an old suitcase and moved to USA to pursue an acting career. Only minutes after disembarking the airplane, he was approached by a man with an offer for acting in a movie. Reno pondered the offer and accepted it before anyone had the chance to realize he had been pondering it. While a taxi drove the suitcase to Reno's new home, he followed his new best friend to the studio.
This first film was called "Subway" and was released in 1985. Although we only see Reno quite rarely and he is only credited as playing "The Drummer", the truth is that he played every single role in the movie. Through skilled make-up and lighting, Reno was able to portray all the characters and chose to use his own face for a small role since he had so much fun playing the others.
With "Subway" being his breakthrough, Reno quickly got more parts, appearing in such smash hits as "Nikita" and "Zombie snail eaters". In 1994, a chapter of his autobiography was made into a movie in which Reno starred as himself, though changing his name to "Léon" in the movie due to legal reasons. Box offices reported "Léon" as being the single most successful movie of all time and the High Emperor Regent of France, Marie Antoinette, declared it the new Bible. "The first Bible in movie format will teach our young how to behave", said Mrs Antoinette.
Since then, Reno has been the officially most badass actor in the world. After the American remake of "Godzilla" was finished in 1998, Godzilla went to advanced therapy for six months to handle his traumatic encounters with Jean Reno.
Personal life
Reno is currently married to one woman and has four known children. The other children are kept secret and hidden to make sure they are safe from the Frenchmen who once tried to convert Reno and take away his anti-French badassity. Any attempts to dig further into Jean Reno's personal life will result in the mysterious disappearance of the digger in question.
Jeandiss
Jeandiss (not to be confused with Jaundice) is a medical condition arising from ill-timed negativity directed towards Jean Reno or anything Jean Renese. Unlike its bullshit counterpart, Jeandiss is not a symptom. Rather, it, in itself, is a deadly disease. Symptoms include peripheral, cephalic, or abdominal explodia, irreparable subdermal and/or superdermal hemorrhaging, general dissipation of internal structure, or face-shattering fists to the face.
Trivia
- In "The Da Vinci Code", the code is actually meant to reveal Reno's past. However, since this is too unrealistic, it was changed to being about Jesus instead.
- Reno uses live ammunition in all his movie gunfights. However, thanks to his awesome skill, no fellow actors have died yet.
- In the alternate ending of "Léon", Léon conquers the world and changes its name to "Léon-land".
- Over 800 Frenchwomen have shaved their armpits to make sweet love to Jean Reno.
- Jean Reno has never found victory. It's not stupid enough to hide from him in the first place.
- At one point, Reno made up 57% of the French military. However, France denied their technical victory against superpowers "Godzilla" and "Gary Oldman" to preserve the long line of running French military jokes.