INTERVIEW: Frank Leboeuf went from marking Ronaldo in the 1998 World Cup final and playing for Chelsea to featuring in Hollywood blockbusters… and now the former France star is performing five shows a week on stage

• Leboeuf has found a new career as an actor after retiring from football in 2007
• World Cup winner featured in 2014 Oscar-winning film The Theory of Everything 
• Mauricio Pochettino vs Alan Shearer – who is right? Listen to It’s All Kicking Off 

The queue is forming outside Comedie Saint-Martin, a small theatre in the heart of Paris, and Frank Leboeuf swerves up on to the pavement on his BMW motorbike. ‘Full house!’ he says, whipping off his helmet and acknowledging a couple at the front.

With an hour until curtain call, he makes a dash for his dressing room. A dark, pokey den, full of wigs and costumes. ‘It’s not Real Madrid or Chelsea but it’s fun. I share it with my hitman who comes to kill me!’ he says, explaining the narrative of Hernie Fiscale, a six-month production about mistaken identity.

The billboards display his name on the cast list like anyone else’s. Not the World Cup winner or the Chelsea legend. Just Frank Leboeuf. This is his life now, five shows a week.

‘I played 700 games of football and I’ve played 1,400 times on stage,’ he says, explaining how he went from marking Ronaldo in the 1998 World Cup final to featuring in Hollywood blockbusters.

‘My real stars were actors. When I was young I watched plays with my mother on TV and I wanted to do that. When I played for Chelsea in 1999 I met Ronald Harwood through a neighbour. 

Frank Leboeuf has become an established actor after retiring from football in 2007

Leboeuf enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, whose alumni include Alec Baldwin, Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson

He wrote the play called Taking Sides and the year after he called me to say it was becoming a movie and he’d like me to be in it.

‘I went to see our manager, Mr Claudio Ranieri, and said, “Can I go to Berlin for three days to shoot the movie?”. He said, “Yes, for sure” and when I came back I knew what I wanted to do at the end of my career. So when I gave up football I went to LA to study acting.’

Leboeuf enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, whose alumni include Alec Baldwin, Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson. Acting took off, although he rarely drew attention to his radical career change. In 2014 he played the Swiss doctor in The Theory of Everything, the Oscar-winning portrayal of Stephen Hawking.

‘We shot that in an old hospital, not too far from Wembley, and Eddie Redmayne asked if I played there. I said, “Yes, six times, and now I play here!”.

‘I have friends who said, “I watched The Theory of Everything … was that you?” I’m like, “Yeah, it was me!” I understand people see me as a former football player and that’s not a problem, I don’t want to deny it, it’s great.’

There are 300 people to entertain, so we pick up our conversation after the show. The late 1990s were Leboeuf’s glory days on the pitch. He joined Chelsea from Strasbourg in 1996 and established himself as a cult hero at Stamford Bridge. Some of his team-mates were the era’s great entertainers. Gianfranco Zola for club, Zinedine Zidane for country. ‘Magicians!’ he says.

‘At the time it was more fashionable to go to Italy or Spain but I wanted to learn English. That’s why I came to London. When I came to Chelsea I asked what newspaper I can get to learn proper English. They said get The Daily Mail! So I learnt English reading The Daily Mail and Teletext!

‘In the first year we had 17 different nationalities and we got along very well. Zola, Gianluca Vialli, Tore Andre Flo, Roberto Di Matteo, Dennis Wise, Marcel Desailly, Steve Clarke, Dan Petrescu, Graeme Le Saux. That was a dream come true. They put us out close to Heathrow but we said, “We don’t want to stay here, we want to be in the middle of the city”. I was living near Fulham Road and we went for dinner in restaurants almost every day.

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Permission from Chelsea boss Claudio Ranieri to shoot a movie in Berlin sparked Leboeuf’s post-career emergence as an actor

The defender spent five years at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea before departing for Marseille

‘Scalini on Walton Street! There was another Italian restaurant near Harrods. Liam Neeson was there one night and I told him I love acting. The day after we went with him to the studios where they were shooting Star Wars. As a footballer, those years at Chelsea were the best time of my life.’

Now 55, Leboeuf breaks into a grin when asked if his team-mates shared his interest in acting. ‘I’ve got some Italian friends and it was fun to see them diving for nothing! I was even clapping them, saying, “Well done, that’s a Hollywood Oscar!”.’

During his time in south-west London, Leboeuf rubbed shoulders with the area’s high society. He recalls one occasion when Tony Blair, Prime Minister at the time, visited a training session. ‘Marcel Desailly was next to me and I remember saying, “I’m going to talk to Tony Blair about my dog”. 

‘Marcel said, “You’re crazy!” When I met Tony Blair I said, “I don’t care about politics, the only thing I want to talk to you about is that my daughter cannot have a dog because of your stupid quarantine!” He said come tomorrow to Downing Street and we’ll talk. I said, “Really!”. I was having tea with the Prime Minister and the law was changed. Dogs could get the Shuttle to France! After that, we got a dog called Chelsea.’

Leboeuf is still in touch with his old teammates. Bixente Lizarazu and Laurent Blanc have been to his show and there is a WhatsApp group featuring all the 1998 World Cup winners. So, what was it really like to mark Ronaldo on that night in Paris, when France secured a famous 3-0 win over Brazil?

‘I was really focused on what I had to do,’ he says. ‘Everyone said it would be tough. It was! You have to check his position when you have the ball, because when you lose the ball it was too late. The guy escapes.

 Leboeuf was part of the France squad that clinched the nation’s first World Cup in 1998

‘If he launched into the space behind then you knew it was impossible to catch him. At the same time you have to pay attention to Bebeto and Rivaldo. It wasn’t easy, so I’m proud of that.’

Conversation turns back to the present. He expresses his disappointment at Chelsea’s 2-0 defeat by Brentford and explains how his production will be putting on additional shows over the holiday period. Busy times.

What about nerves? Does he feel the same on stage as he did on the pitch? ‘Are you kidding me?’ he says. ‘At Wembley you have 80,000 people who hate you! You have 2.5billion people watching you in a World Cup final. If you lose, you’re going to be the shame of your country. 

Here we don’t have any opponents, we know how it’s going to end up. Normally I have friends who are happy to see me! Here I go in, I’m happy and want to make people laugh. It’s incomparable.’

Most of Leboeuf’s medals are now at the Chelsea museum. An ode to his old life in London. These days he gets his kicks elsewhere.

IT’S ALL KICKING OFF! 

It’s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football.

It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify.

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