Ooh aah, Cantona: Eric joins fat club for film

Don't pick a fight with Eric Cantona. He's more likely to crush you under 160 kilos of bulging flesh rather than risk falling flat on his back after a karate kick.

But nothing about the 37-year-old former Manchester United star has ever been quite what it seems since he retired in 1997.

Those gigantic flabby cheeks and bulging stomach are Eric in disguise for his latest film part as a greedy policeman.

Since King Cantona quit England to live in Spain, the only subject about which he will talk to journalists, save for his love of barefoot beach soccer, is the cinema.

Eric will, as the French say, "burst the screen" from July 16 when his latest film, L'Outremangeur (The Overeater), is released.

In his first sketchy interviews the usually taciturn star has described how he poured with sweat after his 75 kilo frame was covered in layers of sponge rubber.

He will break his usual attempts to avoid publicity next week when the promotion for the comic strip-inspired film begins. It is in his words a "touching story".

His character tracks down a murderer who turns out to be a beautiful woman. To avoid arrest, she has to dine with him every night for a year. Love blossoms and Cantona becomes more interested in sex than food.

Critics were indulgent when he played a rugby player on screen but wrote off a comedy called Mookie, in which Cantona's pet monkey was said to have delivered the best lines.

He has a long standing grudge with journalists, particularly French ones who have written little about his sporting life after Manchester United except to note his status as their "footballer of the century".