Biography

Used to write fan letters as a child to actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Jennifer Aniston, singer Céline Dion, the cast from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), the cast from Roswell (1999), and the casts from Charmed (1998) and Smallville (2001). None of them wrote back to him.

Xavier's mother is Canadian, and is of three quarters French-Canadian and one quarter Irish descent (the surname "Dolan" is Irish). Xavier's father is Egyptian, from Cairo.

During the press conference for It's Only the End of the World (2016) at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, Dolan stated that this is his best film. He also said in an interview for DP/30 in December 2016 that the scene he's the most proud of directing was the silent scene in this film between Marion Cotillard and Gaspard Ulliel on the couch, when their characters exchange looks and communicate only with their eyes and Cotillard's character understands that Ulliel's character is dying. That scene wasn't on the script and was improvised on set.

During his childhood he was a fan of Titanic (1997), had posters of the movie in his bedroom and even wrote a letter to Leonardo DiCaprio when he was 8 years old. He also stated that "Titanic" had an incredible impact on his life and career path and that Kate Winslet inspired him to become an actor, a director, and a costume designer after seeing her in the film. He also had a cat named Jack Dawson like DiCaprio's character in the film.

Has a total of 27 tattoos (as of 2017) and also has tattoos for each of the films he's directed.

[on directing oneself in a film] I don't want to be brash, but you just do it. It's not complicated. I love it. I sit down on the chair to do the scene, and then I get up, ask for the playback. And if it's bad it's bad. If it's good it's good. I won't hesitate a second if it's bad.

For me, hipsterism is for one to appropriate the codes of a social class or another milieu that wasn't theirs originally, in order to define their personality through something different and unique. Which is why a lot of hipsters live downtown and they're dressed as farmers. Then you have the Oscar Wilde hipster: the dandy. But pushed to the extreme. The edge. People are costumed. Its a disguise or something. For me, thats a sign of a loss of people believing in themselves, and of self-confidence.

Even the characters that seem so far away intellectually or socially, for me, when they speak, it will always be my words.

I was a very violent kid. I think movies and writing and art have been a way of channeling this.

I've been recording forever. I'm a watcher. I'm a stalker. I love everything about people. It's always been a passion for me to observe.