TAKE ME TO THE MOVIES

Matt Demers may have invented his A-list celebrity reporter alter ego, Mr. Hollywood, to manifest fame and fortune, taking on the mantra, “I’m famous because I wanna be.” But Matt’s continuing success has everything to do with his hard work and commitment to the entertainment industry across a fifteen year career in television, radio, and online media that’s made him famous, not just at home in Ottawa, but around the world.

He got his start in the business the same way all great, 21st-century artists do — by winning a reality TV show contest. It all began back in 2008 with a Rogers TV Ottawa program called Your Screen Test. For their prize, the contest winner was given the opportunity to host four episodes of their very own Rogers TV show. And thus, Mr. Hollywood was born — a larger than life, exaggerated caricature of Matt’s true self, bordering on obnoxious and miles away from ‘politically correct’. It was the style at the time.

You may remember another Ottawa native who got his start doing public access TV at Rogers: the internationally-renowned comedian Tom Green. Mr. Hollywood didn’t take off with quite the same energy as The Tom Green Show, but it was enough for Matt to live out his fantasy as a late-night talk show host and securely jam his foot into the entertainment industry’s doorway. “From there, I kind of made relationships, and I ended up doing a lot more stuff on TV and radio,” Matt says.

Mr. Hollywood was all about taking an eccentric, comedic approach to the world of celebrity reporting. Kind of like if you were to smash together The Colbert Report with Entertainment Tonight and produce it all on a shoestring budget.

Matt created a sort of guerilla warfarestyle approach to red-carpet affairs. Two examples: he crashed the Toronto International Film Festival without media accreditation; similarly, his infamous coverage of the 2010 Genie Awards left Dawson’s Creek star, Joshua Jackson, stunned and near speechless in response to Mr. Hollywood’s questioning.