The youngest of three, Godin was raised in a bilingual household. As a youngster, he earned a reputation as something of a cut-up. He was accepted into the prestigious St. Michael's Cathedral Choir School where he studied several musical instruments. In his teens, Godin was encouraged to act in community theater productions.
After completing studies at the Ryerson Theater School in 1980, Godin won an apprenticeship at the Shaw Festival. For much of the 1980s, he concentrated on stage work, honing his craft in everything from Shakespeare ("Macbeth") to musical comedy ("Pal Joey"). In 1990, he played a stock exchange dealer in "Where the Heart Is" and was cast as a man who sets out to fulfill his destiny as a writer and lover in "The White Room". Godin made his American TV debut in a small role in the CBS miniseries "Common Ground" (1990). He remained active on the small screen in guest appearances on such US and Canadian series as "Seinfeld", "TekWar" and "Wings" and in such TV-movies as "Danielle Steel's 'Vanished'" (NBC, 1995) and "Bizet's Dream" (HBO, 1995).