Alexis del Vecchio

A native of Montreal, Canada, Alexis got his first start as a child actor in the French-speaking province of Quebec. After years of modeling for provincial and national publications - such as Pomme D'Api and other kids magazines - and ad campaigns - RAAQ, Ontario Milk, etc. -, first as a baby and then as a young child, Alexis got his first breakthrough when he was cast, at the age of seven, as the lead in a new film adaptation of Florence Montgomery's novel L'incompris (1997) or "Misunderstood". The film, a co-production between Canada and France, also starred Pierre Malet, Pascale Montpetit and Louisette Dussault. Over the next few years, Alexis continued to do commercials and guest starred on several French and English-Canadian television series - Virginie (1996), Tandem, Sous un Ciel Variable (1995), Global TV's Northern Mysteries, etc. - before getting his second big break when, amongst more than a thousand auditioners, he was cast as the French voice of Anakin Skywalker in George Lucas ' first installment of his second Star Wars trilogy, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). Alexis immediately established his reputation as the go-to guy for French-dubbed films requiring young male voices, and over the next several years spanning his teens, he developed a long and resourceful voice-over career, providing his voice-over talents to the international French-dubbed versions of more than fifty Hollywood movies, as well as providing original character voices on internationally broad-casted live action and animated series, produced and originated in Canada, both Americas, Europe and Japan. Alexis also narrated several television documentaries, educational and informational series, commercials, and special programs. Alexis provided his voice talents across countless mediums, and became known for his ability to voice characters aged 5-25, as well as his ability to play characters of both genders. Alexis provided voices for dozens of episodes of animated television series - one of his most fun experiences consisted in voicing Billy's sworn enemy on France's animated series adaptation of the comic strip "Billy and Buddy", known in French as Boule et Bill (2004). The popular series, based on the beloved comic strip, was broadcast on the major networks in Canada and France and was internationally syndicated. Meanwhile, Alexis attended Collège Jean-Eudes, one of Canada's best high schools and Quebec's number-one-ranked-and-rated secondary school (According to the annual rankings of public affairs magazine L'Actualité), and though he spent more time on the set and in the voice-dubbing studio, tutoring himself without ever needing the help of an on-set teacher or tutor, than behind a desk in his classrooms, he maintained an A average through high school, ultimately garnering a 93.98% average in his last year at Jean-Eudes, the fourth best average amongst more than 275 graduating students. He also racked in numerous academic and extracurricular awards, including a Book scholarship awarded to the top 50 graduating secondary school students of the province of Quebec. After he M.C.'ed a gala and ceremony celebration in honor of the Collège's 50th Anniversary, the school's principal thanked Alexis for his hosting duties by jokingly declaring, to an audience that included various politicians, Quebec ministers and dignitaries - notably the then-mayor of Montreal - that Alexis was "a professional actor, and, in his spare time, a student at Jean-Eudes." He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Collège Jean-Eudes. Shortly after Alexis turned sixteen, he applied to various preparatory boarding high schools across Canada and the United States, and after gaining admission to a number of them, he settled on the renown Kent School, in Kent, Connecticut. Studying at Kent fulfilled one of Alexis' lifelong dreams of moving to the United States and beginning to pursue a career in the performing arts in America. He attended Kent School for the eleventh and twelfth grades. At Kent, Alexis maintained his stellar academic record. This required him to study long hours every night as he pulled many all-nighters during his first (and second) year at Kent. As Alexis spoke a microscopic amount of English before gaining admission to Kent, he learned the language "on the spot," by being immersed in his new anglophone environment. His hard work, dedication and tenacity ultimately earned him, much to his happy bewilderment, the Robert S. Hillyer '13 English Prize awarded to the graduating senior - or sixth former, as they are called at Kent - that most distinguished him or herself in their and study of English literature, and writing of English throughout their Kent career. Alexis was also inducted during the School's baccalaureate service into the international Cum Laude Society, which recognizes a select group of students' academic achievements at the secondary school level, and was made a member of the Tri-M Music Honor Society, the international honor society recognizing secondary music students for their musical ability, academic excellence, school involvement, and community service. He also won the Harvard Book Award, dedicated to the one student who most distinguished him or herself through excellence in scholarship and high character combined with achievement in other fields. He is an AP Scholar with distinction. During his time at Kent, Alexis also won service scholarships through the Patridge Fund and the Dominic F. Rich Memorial Fund that allowed him to travel to El Salvador to build affordable housing for people in need of them. He addressed the student body and faculty on his experiences in El Salvador, and addressed the student body again at the School's Annual Blue and Grey Alumni Dinner. At Kent, while continuing to maintain his stellar academic record, Alexis took voice classes, starred in the school's Fall and Spring plays, respectively a play and a musical, sung in various recitals, and wrote, produced, directed and starred in a one-act musical for which he wrote the book and which celebrated classic and contemporary Broadway hits. Some of Alexis' favorite Kent credits include playing Andrew Aguecheek in "Twelfth Night", Reverend John Hale in "The Crucible", Rooster in "Annie", and Enoch Snow in Rodgers' and Hammerstein's "Carousel". He has also performed regionally at the renown Maltz Jupiter Theater, in Jupiter, Florida, formerly the Burt Reynolds Theater. After applying to and gaining admission at some of the nation's top and Ivy League schools, Alexis settled on Yale, where he continued his lifelong study of Film and Theater. During his time at Yale, Alexis starred in, produced or helped in various behind-the-scenes capacities more than 17 plays and musicals produced on the School's various main-stages and alternative theatrical spaces. He has studied acting and playwriting under the direction of various Yale School of Drama professors, and screenwriting and film theory and history under the umbrella of the renown undergraduate Film Studies program. He pursues a double major program that will lead him to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Studies and Film Studies. While still enrolled at Yale, Alexis also spent a summer in Swaziland and South Africa where he completed humanitarian theatrical work, using theater and acting to conduct therapy workshops to help people living with AIDS. To this day, the experience ranks as one of Alexis' most fulfilling and life-changing. Alexis' other artistic accomplishments and passions include fiction and non-fiction writing in all its forms, with a special focus on screenwriting and playwriting. Alexis' French poetry is featured in L'Amuse-Bouche, the French magazine of prose of poetry, which features contributions from lauded authors from around the world, including a piece from Nobel Prize Winner Elie Wiesel, and which magazine is distributed in bookstores nationwide. He has contributed various pieces and performing arts reviews to the Yale Daily News, The Nation's Oldest College Daily. Having interned at various production companies in Los Angeles, he has written dozens of script coverages, and since then, he has worked as a story analyst, and recently contributed a full rewrite on a film script set up at a major studio. Alexis has been featured in the Journal de Montreal, the largest-circulation French-language newspaper in North America (Current readership stands at 2.1 million daily readers), the online edition of the National Examiner, the Kent Daily News, the Kent News, the Kent Quaterly, several French-Canadian broadcast network channels (TVA and Radio-Canada), and various local newspapers. He is fluent at a native/bilingual level in French, English, and Italian, speaks some Hebrew, and though he once knew how to write Latin, he unfortunately could not speak one word of it now.