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1-50 of 5,374
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
French actress Léa Seydoux was born in 1985 in Paris, France, to Valérie Schlumberger, a philanthropist, and Henri Seydoux, a businessman. Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, is chairman of Pathé, and her father is a great-grandson of businessman and inventor Marcel Schlumberger (her mother also descends from the Schlumberger family). Her parents are both of mixed French and Alsatian German descent, with more distant Venezuelan (Spanish, Basque) roots on her father's side.
Léa began her acting career in French cinema, appearing in films such as The Last Mistress (2007) and On War (2008). She first came to attention after she received her first César Award nomination for her performance in The Beautiful Person (2008), and won the Trophée Chopard, an award given to promising actors at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, she has appeared in major Hollywood films including Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (2010), Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). In French cinema, she was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for a second time for her role in Belle Épine (2010) and was nominated for the César Award for Best Actress for the film Farewell, My Queen (2012).
In 2013, Seydoux came to widespread attention when Seydoux and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos, alongside director Abdellatif Kechiche, were awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, for their involvement in the critically acclaimed film Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)). As a special prize for their roles, Along with Jane Campion, Seydoux and Exarchopoulos are the only women to have ever won a Palme d'Or.
That same year, she also received the Lumières Award for Best Actress for the film Grand Central and, in 2014, she was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award and starred in the films Beauty and the Beast, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Saint Laurent. In 2015 she played Madeleine Swann in the 24th James Bond film Spectre.- Gaïa Weiss is a French actress known for her roles in TV shows 'Vikings', 'Marie-Antoinette', or multi awarded sci-fi feature film 'Meander'.
Born in Paris to a Polish mother and French father, and later raised between Paris and London, Gaïa is strong from her multi-cultural background.
She discovered her love for the stage at the age of 4 with ballet, and went on to take drama classes at 7 years old.
She later trained at the Cours Florent in Paris, followed by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
Gaïa is the niece of political journalist Andrzej Koraszewski. - Actress
- Director
- Producer
Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years, she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed and taken the lead in various Stagecoach productions and school plays.
In 1999, casting began for Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001), the film adaptation of British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling novel. Casting agents found Emma through her Oxford theatre teacher. After eight consistent auditions, producer David Heyman told Emma and fellow applicants, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, that they had been cast for the roles of the three leads, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) was Emma's cinematic screen debut. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the film and the performances of the three leading young actors. The highly distributed British newspaper, 'The Daily Telegraph', called her performance "admirable". Later, Emma was nominated for five awards for her performance in the film, winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film.
After the release of the first film of the highly successful franchise, Emma became one of the most well-known actresses in the world. She continued to play the role of Hermione Granger for nearly ten years, in all of the following Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). Emma acquired two Critics' Choice Award nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for her work in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. The completion of the seventh and eight movies saw Emma receive nominations in 2011 for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award, and for Best Actress at the Jameson Empire Awards. The Harry Potter franchise won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in February 2011.
2011 saw Emma in Simon Curtis's My Week with Marilyn (2011), alongside a stellar cast of Oscar nominees including Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier, in addition to Eddie Redmayne, Dame Judi Dench, Dougray Scott, Zoe Wanamaker, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper. Chronicling a week in Marilyn Monroe's life, the film featured Emma in the supporting role of Lucy, a costume assistant to Colin Clark (Redmayne). The film was released by The Weinstein Company and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. In 2012 Emma was seen in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), starring opposite Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. This independent drama centered around Charlie (Lerman), an introverted freshman who is taken under the wings of two seniors (Watson and Miller) who welcome him to the real world. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received rave reviews. The film won the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie and Emma also picked up the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie Actress. Emma was awarded a second time for this role with the Best Supporting Actress Award at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards where the film also won the Best Ensemble Performance Award.
In summer 2013, Emma starred in Sofia Coppola's American satirical black comedy crime film, The Bling Ring (2013), opposite Katie Chang and Israel Broussard. The film took inspiration from real events and followed a group of teenagers who, obsessed with fashion and fame, burgled the homes of celebrities in Los Angeles. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Emma also appeared in a cameo role as herself in Seth Rogen's apocalypse comedy This Is The End (2013). The film tells the story about what happens to some of Hollywood's best loved celebrities when the apocalypse strikes during a party at James Franco's house.
In 2014, Emma was seen in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), opposite Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. The film told the epic, biblical tale of Noah and the ark. Emma plays the role of Ila, a young woman who develops a close relationship with Noah's son, Shem (Booth). Noah made an outstanding $300m since its release in March. In 2015, Emma starred in Regression (2015), written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar. Also headlined by Oscar-nominated Ethan Hawke, and set in Minnesota in 1990, Regression tells the story of Detective Bruce Kenner (Hawke), who investigates the case of young Angela, played by Emma, who accuses her father of sexual abuse.
In 2012, Emma was honored with the Calvin Klein Emerging Star Award at the ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards. In 2013, Emma was awarded the Trailblazer Award at the MTV Movie Awards in April and was honored with the GQ Woman of the Year Award at the GQ Awards in September. Further to her acting career, Emma is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Emma graduated from Brown University in May 2014.
In 2017, Emma starred in the live-action Disney fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), one of the biggest movies of all time in the U.S., and the dramatic thriller The Circle (2017).- Actress
- Producer
Debicki was born in Paris to a Polish father and an Australian mother of Irish descent who were both dancers. When she was five, the family moved to Melbourne, where she grew up with two younger siblings. She became interested in ballet at an early age and trained as a dancer until deciding to switch to theatre. A student at Huntingtower School in Melbourne's east, Debicki achieved two perfect study scores in drama and English and was the school's dux when she graduated in 2007. In 2010, she completed a degree in drama at the University of Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts. In August 2009, she was the recipient of a Richard Pratt Bursary for outstanding acting students in their second year of training.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
French actress and model Eva Gaëlle Green was born on July 6, 1980, in Paris, France. Her father, Walter Green, is a dentist who appeared in the 1966 film Balthazar (1966). Her mother, Marlène Jobert, is an actress turned children's book writer. Eva's mother was born in Algeria, of French, Spanish, and Sephardic Jewish heritage (during that time, Algeria was part of France), and Eva's father is of Swedish, French, and Breton descent. She has a fraternal twin sister, Joy. Eva left French school at 17. She switched to the American School in France for one year. She left the American School and studied acting at Saint Paul Drama School in Paris for three years, then had a 10-week polishing course at the Weber Douglas Academy of dramatic Art in London. She returned to Paris as an accomplished young actress, and played on stage in several theater productions: "La Jalousie en Trois Fax" and "Turcaret". There, she caught the eye of director Bernardo Bertolucci. Green followed a recommendation to work on her English. She studied for two months with an English coach before doing The Dreamers (2003) with Bernardo Bertolucci. During their work, Bertolucci described Green as being "so beautiful it's indecent".
Green won critical acclaim for her role in The Dreamers (2003). After "The Dreamers", Green played the love interest of cult French gentleman-thief, Arsène Lupin (2004), opposite Romain Duris. In 2005, she co-starred, opposite Orlando Bloom and Liam Neeson, in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), produced and directed by Ridley Scott. The film brought her a wider international exposure. She turned down the femme fatale role in The Black Dahlia (2006), that went to Hilary Swank, because she didn't want to end up typecast after her role in "The Dreamers". Instead, Eva accepted the prestigious role of "Vesper Lynd", one of three Bond girls, opposite Daniel Craig, in Casino Royale (2006) and became the fifth French actress to play a James Bond girl, after Claudine Auger in Thunderball (1965), Corinne Cléry in Moonraker (1979), Carole Bouquet in For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Sophie Marceau in The World Is Not Enough (1999). She achieved international recognition for the film, one of the highest-grossing Bond movies ever.
Since then, Green has starred in the films Dark Shadows (2012), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014), Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016). She also starred as Vanessa Ives in Showtime's horror drama Penny Dreadful (2014). Her performance in the series earned her a nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series - Drama at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.
Since her school years, Green has been a cosmopolitan multilingual and multicultural person. Yet, since her father always lived in France with them and her mother, she and her twin sister can't speak Swedish. She developed a wide scope of interests beyond her acting profession and
became an aspiring art connoisseur and an avid museum visitor. Her other activities, outside of acting, include playing and composing music, cooking at home, walking her terrier, and collecting art. She shares time between her two residencies, one is in Paris, France, and one in London, England.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Lizzie Brocheré was born on 22 March 1985 in Paris, France. She is an actress and director, known for Rings (2017), Full Contact (2015) and American Horror Story (2011).- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Elodie Yung was born in Paris, France, of Cambodian and French descent. She grew up in
Seine-saint-Denis, in Le Bourget, where she practiced karate and
obtained her black belt. She graduated from University of La Sorbonne
in Paris and has a law degree. She then decided to study acting at
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in London.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Stacy Martin was born on 20 March 1990 in Paris, France. She is an actress, known for Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013), All the Money in the World (2017) and The Serpent (2021).- Actress
- Art Department
- Additional Crew
Juliette Binoche was born in Paris, France, to Monique Yvette Stalens,
a director, teacher, and actress, and Jean-Marie Binoche, a sculptor,
director, and actor. Her mother was born in Czestochowa, Poland, of
French, Walloon Belgian, and Polish descent, while her father is
French. Juliette was only 23 when she first attracted the attention of
international film critics with
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988).
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times film critic
with an international following of his books on film and TV reviews,
wrote that she was "almost ethereal in her beauty and innocence". That
innocence was gone by the time Binoche completed
Louis Malle's
Damage (1992) (aka "Fatale"). In an
interview after the film was released, Binoche said: "Malle was trying
direct and wanted something more sophisticated". A year later,
Krzysztof Kieslowski's
Three Colors: Blue (1993)
was added to her film credits. After a sabbatical from film-making to
become a mother in 1994, Binoche was selected as the heroine of
France's most expensive ($35 million) movie ever:
The Horseman on the Roof (1995).
More recently, she has made
The English Patient (1996),
for which she won an Oscar for 'Best supporting actress' and
Chocolat (2000).- Actress
- Music Department
- Producer
Isabelle Huppert was born March 16, 1953, in Paris, France, but spent her childhood in Ville d'Avray. Encouraged by her mother Annick Huppert (who was a teacher of English), she followed the Conservatory of Versailles and won an acting prize for her work in Alfred de Musset's "Un caprice". She then studied at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique and followed an illustrious theatrical career, which includes Ivan Turgenev's "A Month in the Country", Euripides' "Medea" (title role) etc. She made her movie debut in Le Prussien (1971) and soon became one of the top actresses of her generation, giving fine performances in important films, like Claude Goretta's The Lacemaker (1977), as a simple-minded girl who falls in love with - and is betrayed by - a student, Jean-Luc Godard's Every Man for Himself (1980), as a prostitute, and Maurice Pialat's Loulou (1980), as an upper-class woman who is physically attracted by a young vagabond. She made an inconsequential US debut in Otto Preminger's Rosebud (1975) before playing a brothel madam in Michael Cimino's disastrous Heaven's Gate (1980), but she fared better in Curtis Hanson's The Bedroom Window (1987) (as an adulteress who witnesses an attack). Huppert has an extremely productive collaboration with Claude Chabrol, who cast her in several movies, including Violette (1978), in which she played a woman who murders her parents, and Story of Women (1988), in which she gave an excellent performance as a shameless abortionist, the last woman to be executed in France. More recent good films include Patricia Mazuy's Saint-Cyr (2000) and Michael Haneke's controversial The Piano Teacher (2001), as a sexually repressed piano teacher.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Mélanie Laurent was born in Paris, France. She is the daughter of
Annick, a ballet teacher, and Pierre, a voice actor, who is most
recognized for the French version of
The Simpsons (1989). She has a
younger brother, Mathieu, and has both Sephardi Jewish (from Tunisia)
and Ashkenazi Jewish (from Poland) ancestry. In 1998, Laurent was
visiting the set of
Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (1999)
with a friend when she caught the attention of
Gérard Depardieu. He offered her a role
in his next film
The Bridge (1999).
She only played a small role, but it was enough to further Mélanie's
interest in acting.- Alexa most recently starred as "Special Agent Gaines" on FBI: MOST WANTED on CBS, alongside Dylan McDermott. She also starred in Amazon's Emmy-award winning drama series, THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE. Her other television work includes Marvel's THE PUNISHER and Frank Darabont's MOB CITY.
Alexa's film work includes supporting roles in DEFIANCE alongside Daniel Craig, THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK opposite Vin Diesel and Judi Dench, FEAST OF LOVE opposite Morgan Freeman, THE MIST with Marcia Gay Harden, and CLASH OF THE TITANS opposite Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, and Ralph Fiennes. - Actress
- Producer
- Director
Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard was born on September 30, 1975 in Paris. Cotillard is the daughter of Jean-Claude Cotillard, an actor, playwright and director, and Niseema Theillaud, an actress and drama teacher. Her father's family is from Brittany.
Raised in Orléans, France, she made her acting debut as a child with a role in one of her father's plays. She studied drama at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique in Orléans. After small appearances and performances in theater, Cotillard had occasional and minor roles in TV series such as Highlander (1992) and Extrême limite (1994), but her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s. While still a teenager, Cotillard made her cinema debut at the age of 18 in the film L'histoire du garçon qui voulait qu'on l'embrasse (1994), and had small but noticeable roles in films such as Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument (1996) and Coline Serreau's comedy The Green Planet (1996).
In 1996, she had her first lead role in the TV film Chloé (1996), playing the title role - a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution. Cotillard co-starred opposite Anna Karina, the muse of the Nouvelle Vague.
In 1997, she won her first film award at the Festival Rencontres Cinématographiques d'Istres in France, for her performance as the young imprisoned Nathalie in the short film Affaire classée (1997). Her first prominent screen role was Lilly Bertineau in Gérard Pirès's box-office hit Taxi (1998), a role which she reprised in two sequels: Taxi 2 (2000) and Taxi 3 (2003), this role earned her first César award nomination (France's equivalent to the Oscar) for Most Promising Actress in 1999.
In 1999, Cotillard starred as Julie Bonzon in the Swiss war drama War in the Highlands (1998). For her performance in the film, she won the Best Actress award at the Autrans Film Festival in France. In 2001, Marion starred in Pretty Things (2001) as the twin sisters Marie and Lucie, and was nominated for her second César award for Most Promising Actress.
Cotillard's breakthrough in France came in 2003, when she starred in Yann Samuell's dark romantic comedy Love Me If You Dare (2003), in which she played Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants who lives a love-hate relationship with her childhood friend. The film was a box-office hit in France, became a cult film abroad and led Cotillard to bigger projects.
Her first Hollywood movie was Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003), in which she played Joséphine, the wife of William Bloom (played by Billy Crudup). A few years later, Marion starred in Ridley Scott's A Good Year (2006) playing Fanny Chenal, a French café owner who falls in love with Russell Crowe's character. In 2004, she won the Chopard Thophy of Female Revelation at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, Cotillard won the César award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance of Tina Lombardi in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (2004).
In 2007, Cotillard received international recognition for her iconic portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie En Rose (2007). Director Olivier Dahan cast Cotillard to play the legendary French singer because to him, her eyes were like those of "Piaf". The fact that she can sing also helped Cotillard land the role of "Piaf", although most of the singing in the film is that of Piaf's. The role won Cotillard the Academy Award for Best Actress along with a César, a Lumière Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe. That made her only the second actress to win an acting Oscar performing in a language other than English next to Sophia Loren (Two Women (1960)). Only two male performers (Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Robert De Niro for The Godfather Part II (1974)) have won an Oscar for solely non-English parts. Trevor Nunn called her portrayal of "Piaf" "one of the greatest performances on film ever". At the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film premiered, Cotillard was given a 15-minute standing ovation. When she won the César, Alain Delon presented the award and announced the winner as "La Môme Marion" (The Kid Marion), he also praised her at the stage saying: "Marion, I give you this César. I think this César is for a great great actress, and I know what I'm talking about".
Cotillard has worked much more frequently in English-language movies following her Academy Award recognition. In 2009, she acted opposite Johnny Depp in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009), and later that year played Luisa Contini in Rob Marshall's musical Nine (2009) and received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Time magazine ranked her as the fifth best performance by a female in 2009. The following year, she took on the main antagonist role, Mal, in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), and in 2011 she had memorable parts in Midnight in Paris (2011) and Contagion (2011) and reteamed with Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
In 2011 and 2012 respectively, Cotillard appeared on the top of Le Figaro's list of the highest paid actors in France, it was the first time in nine years that a female topped the list. Cotillard was also the highest paid foreign actress in Hollywood.
In 2012, Cotillard received wide-spread critical acclaim for her role as the legless orca trainer Stéphanie in Rust and Bone (2012). The film was a box office hit in France and received a ten-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. Cotillard won the Globe de Cristal (France's equivalent to the Golden Globe), the Étoile d'Or award and was nominated for the Golden Globes, SAG, BAFTA, Critics' Choice and César Awards for her performance in the film. Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety praising Cotillard's performance in "Rust and Bone", the two actresses competed for the Academy Awards for Best Actress in 2008, Cate was nominated for her performance in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Marion for her performance in La Vie En Rose (2007) and Cotillard won the Oscar.
She had her first leading role in an American movie in 2013, in James Gray's The Immigrant (2013), in which she played Ewa Cybulska, a Polish immigrant who wants to experience the American dream. Cotillard received wide-spread acclaim for her performance in the film at the 66th Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered, and also won several critics awards. In 2014, Cotillard played Sandra in the Belgian film Two Days, One Night (2014) by the Dardenne brothers. Her performance was unanimously praised at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, earned several critics awards, Cotillard won her first European Award for Best Actress and also received her second Oscar nomination and her sixth César award nomination.
In 2015, she played Lady Macbeth opposite Michael Fassbender in Justin Kurzel's Macbeth (2015) and voiced two animated movies: The Little Prince (2015) in which she voiced The Rose, and April and the Extraordinary World (2015), in which she voiced the lead role, Avril. Her 2016 included Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon (2016), Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World (2016), Justin Kurzel's Assassin's Creed (2016), in which she worked again with her Macbeth co-star Michael Fassbender; and Robert Zemeckis's Allied (2016), with Brad Pitt.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Luc Besson spent the first years of his life following his parents, scuba
diving instructors, around the world. His early life was entirely
aquatic. He already showed amazing creativity as a youth, writing early
drafts of The Big Blue (1988) and The Fifth Element (1997), as an adolescent bored in school. He
planned on becoming a marine biologist specializing in dolphins until a
diving accident at age 17 which rendered him unable to dive any longer.
He moved back to Paris, where he was born, and only at age 18 did he
first have an urban life or television. He realized that film was a
medium which he could combine all his interests in various arts
together, so he began taking odd jobs on various films. He moved to
America for three years, then returned to France and formed Les Films
de Loups - his own production company, which later changed its name to
Les Films de Dauphins. He is now able to dive again.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Known for her performance in La Vie d'Adèle (Blue Is The Warmest Color) by Abdellatif Kechiche, that landed her both the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and the César for Most Promising Actress that same year, Adèle Exarchopoulos has been on the French and International big screen regularly since then. Going forward with original projects, such as "Qui Vive" by Marianne Tardieu (2014) or "Les Anarchistes" by Elie Wajeman (2015), she took part in international projects like "The Last Face" by Sean Penn and "Noureev" by Ralph Fiennes before returning to Cannes in 2019 with "Sibyl", a psychological drama by Justine Triet. The past year marks another turning point in her career as she was in two critically acclaimed comedy projects: the successful TV show "La Flamme" by Jonathan Cohen and long awaited movie "Mandibules" by Quentin Dupieux. She will soon be seen in the big action drama "Bac Nord" by Cedric Jimenez as well as a few other projects including "Rien à Foutre" by Emmanuel Marre and "Les Cinq Diables" by Léa Mysius.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor.
Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is
considered one of the few truly international filmmakers.
Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.
His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years before World War II began.
On Germany's invasion in 1939, as a family of mostly Jewish heritage, they were all
sent to the Krakow ghetto. His parents were then captured and sent to
two different concentration camps:
His father to Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, where he survived the war, and his mother to Auschwitz where
she was murdered. Roman witnessed his father's capture and then, at only 7, managed to escape the ghetto and survive the war, at first
wandering through the Polish countryside and pretending to be a Roman-Catholic kid visiting his relatives.
Although this saved his life, he was severely mistreated suffering nearly fatal beating which
left him with a fractured skull.
Local people usually ignored the cinemas where German films were shown, but Polanski seemed little
concerned by the propaganda and often went to the movies. As the war progressed, Poland became increasingly war-torn and he lived his life as a tramp, hiding in barns and forests, eating whatever he could steal or find.
Still under 12 years old, he encountered some Nazi soldiers who forced him to hold targets while they shot at them. At the war's
end in 1945, he reunited with his father who sent him to a technical school, but young Polanski seemed to have already chosen another
career.
In the 1950s, he took up acting, appearing in Andrzej Wajda's A Generation (1955) before studying at the Lodz Film School.
His early shorts such as Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958), Le gros et le maigre (1961) and Mammals (1962), showed his taste for black humor and interest in bizarre human relationships.
His feature debut, Knife in the Water (1962), was one of the first Polish post-war films not associated with the war theme.
It was also the first movie from Poland to get an Oscar nomination for best foreign film.
Though already a major Polish filmmaker, Polanski chose to leave the country and headed to France.
While down-and-out in Paris, he befriended young scriptwriter, Gérard Brach, who eventually became his long-time collaborator.
The next two films, Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966), made in England and co-written by Brach, won respectively Silver and then Golden Bear awards at the Berlin International Film Festival.
In 1968, Polanski went to Hollywood, where he made the psychological thriller, Rosemary's Baby (1968). However, after the brutal murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson Family in 1969, the director decided to return to Europe. In 1974, he again made a US release - it was Chinatown (1974).
It seemed the beginning of a promising Hollywood career, but after his conviction for the sodomy of a 13-year old girl, Polanski fled from he USA to avoid prison. After Tess (1979), which was awarded several Oscars and Cesars, his works in 1980s and 1990s became intermittent and rarely approached the caliber of his earlier films.
It wasn't until The Pianist (2002) that Polanski came back to full form. For that movie, he won nearly all the most important film awards, including the Oscar for Best Director, Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, the BAFTA and Cesar Award.
He still likes to act in the films of other directors, sometimes with interesting results, as in A Pure Formality (1994).- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Sophie Marceau was born Sophie Danièle Sylvie Maupu in Paris, France,
to Simone (Morisset), a shop assistant, and Benoît Maupu, a truck
driver. She grew up far from the studio spotlights. When she was 14 she
was living in the Paris suburb of Gentilly with her father. She learned
from friends that director
Claude Pinoteau was looking for new
faces for a movie about teenagers called
The Party (1980). She auditioned for the
role, got it, and the film was a success. She played in
The Party 2 (1982), then bought back her
contract with Gaumont when she was 16 years old for one million French
francs. She is a critically acclaimed actress, having received the
Cesar for Best Feminine Hope for "La Boum 2" in 1983. She was elected
Romantic actress for Chouans! (1988) at
the Festival International du Film Romantique (International Festival
of Romantic Movie) of Cabourg in 1988, and was awarded the Moliere of
the Best Theatrical Revelation for "Eurydice et Pygmalion" in 1994.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Blue-eyed Vincent Cassel was born in Paris to a leading actor
father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and a
journalist mother, Sabine Litique. Often labeled as a tough guy because of his roles,
eclectic choices and talent have made of him a star of European cinema.
First in La haine (1995), the young
actor, actually coming from upper classes, succeeded to express the
despair of a social class living in the suburbs of towns. This veracity
in his play comes from the fact that he was in fact since years in
connection with many hip-hop artists from the rising generation, (his
own brother was leader of a legendary french rap group). Then the
success of The Crimson Rivers (2000), where he plays a young French cop
alongside Jean Reno, made of him "the
man to count on." He never hid his taste for rap music, break dance,
Capoeira, Brasil and his endless energy, but Vincent is also a family
man, married to Monica Bellucci, his Italian co-star from
The Apartment (1996) (aka The Apartment); and recently a father.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Isabelle Yasmine Adjani was born in Gennevilliers, Hauts-de-Seine, a suburb of Paris, to Emma Augusta "Gusti" (Schweinberger) and Mohammed Adjani. Her father was a Kabyle Algerian, from Iferhounène, and her mother was a Bavarian German. She grew up speaking German fluently. After winning a school
recitation contest, she began acting in amateur theater by the age of
twelve. At the age of 14, she starred in her first motion picture,
Le Petit Bougnat (1970). Adjani
has appeared in 30 films since 1970. She holds the record for most
César Award for Best Actress (5), which she won for
Possession (1981),
One Deadly Summer (1983) (aka "One
Deadly Summer"),
Camille Claudel (1988),
Queen Margot (1994) (aka
"Queen Margot") and
Skirt Day (2008)
(aka "Skirt Day"). She was also given a double Cannes Film Festival
Best Actress Award in 1981. She also received two Academy Award
nominations for Best Actress. She performs in French, English, Italian
and German. Adjani was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2010.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Nora Arnezeder was born in Paris, France to an Austrian father and an Egyptian mother. While she was still in high school, she studied acting, dancing and singing at the renowned drama school Cours Florent in Paris. Nora's first major role was in 2008 in Paris 36 (French title: Faubourg 36) which was directed by Christophe Barratier and for which she won the Lumières Award as well as the Étoile d' Or award. In this film, Nora Arnezeder performed the song "Loin de Paname" which was nominated for Best Original Song at the 82nd Academy Awards. In 2012, Nora Arnezeder appeared in the film Safe House with Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington. In the same year, she appeared in the role of Celia in The Words, opposite Bradley Cooper and Ben Barnes. The film was presented at the Sundance Film Festival.
Nora Arnezeder also acted in the horror slasher film Maniac alongside Elijah Wood.
In 2013, Nora Arnezeder was the leading actress in the internationally praised costume drama Angélique by Ariel Zeitoun.
In November 2014, Nora Arnezeder was cast in the CBS series Zoo, based on the novel by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. Zoo premiered in June 2015.
Recently, Nora Arnezeder participated in the series Mozart in the Jungle playing Anna Maria, the wife of the main character, Rodrigo (Gael Garcia Bernal). The show won two Golden Globes.- Actress
- Producer
- Cinematographer
Anastasia trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art having already completed a degree in History of Art at Bristol University. Born to her Northern Irish mother (once an actress herself) and American father, she was brought up along with her six elder brothers in West London where she still remains today. To date, Anastasia has enjoyed a varied and entertaining career jumping between the US and the UK, both of which she considers to be home. She goes where the winds, and the work, takes her!- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Julie Delpy was born in Paris, France, in 1969 to
Albert Delpy and
Marie Pillet, both actors.
She was first featured in
Jean-Luc Godard's
Detective (1985) at the age of
fourteen. She has starred in many American and European productions
since then, including Disney's
The Three Musketeers (1993),
Killing Zoe (1993),
Three Colors: White (1994),
and the "Before" series, alongside
Ethan Hawke:
Before Sunrise (1995),
Before Sunset (2004), and
Before Midnight (2013).
She graduated from NYU's film school, and wrote and directed the short
film Blah Blah Blah (1995), which
screened at the Sundance Film Festival. She is a resident of Los
Angeles.- Actress
- Producer
- Talent Agent
Catherine Fabienne Deneuve was born October 22, 1943 in Paris, France, to actor parents Renée Simonot and Maurice Dorléac. She made her movie debut in 1957, when she was barely a teenager and continued with small parts in minor films, until Roger Vadim gave her a meatier role in Vice and Virtue (1963). Her breakthrough came with the excellent musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), in which she gave an unforgettable performance as a romantic middle-class girl who falls in love with a young soldier but gets imprisoned in a loveless marriage with another man; the director was the gifted Jacques Demy, who also cast Deneuve in the less successful The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). She then played a schizophrenic killer in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) and a married woman who works as a part-time prostitute every afternoon in Luis Buñuel's masterpiece Belle de Jour (1967). She also worked with Buñuel in Tristana (1970) and gave a great performance for François Truffaut in Mississippi Mermaid (1969), a kind of apotheosis of her "frigid femme fatale" persona. In the seventies she didn't find parts of that caliber, but her magnificent work in Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980) as a stage actress in Nazi-occupied Paris revived her career. She was also very good in the epic drama Indochine (1992), for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination (Best Actress). Although the elegant and always radiant Deneuve has never appeared on stage, she is universally hailed as one of the "grandes dames" of French cinema, joining a list that includes such illustrious talents as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani and the younger Juliette Binoche.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Cherry Jones was born on 21 November 1956 in Paris, Tennessee, USA. She is an actress, known for The Village (2004), Signs (2002) and The Perfect Storm (2000). She has been married to Sophie Huber since 2015.- Stephanie Szostak (show-stack), is an actress, author, a Give an Hour Ambassador and speaks on overcoming failure, being an outsider and living with authenticity.
Szostak left her native France to study business and play varsity golf at the College of William & Mary. At 29 years old, after a few years at Chanel in NYC she took a leap and gave the acting world a try. Soon after she landed a role opposite Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. Her most notable projects include the ABC hit series A Million Little Things, Iron Man 3, and Dinner for Schmucks.
As her career gained momentum, she battled with Impostor Syndrome which pushed her to address her mindset and develop her own 'Playbook' as a daily practice of Mental Fitness. In her book, Self!sh: Step Into a Journey of Self-Discovery to Revive Confidence, Joy, and Meaning, she guides readers in creating their own Personal Playbook for life - a tool to cultivate a resilient mindset and empower them on their unique journey of self-discovery, learning, and growth.
As part of her commitment to mental health, she donates half of her proceeds from the book to the mental health organization, Give an Hour. - French actress Bérénice Marlohe first came to international attention when she was cast as the glamorous and enigmatic Severine in the twenty-third Bond film Skyfall (2012), alongside Daniel Craig which grossed over 1.11 billion dollars worldwide. Marlohe will continue to expand her presence in the States on the silver screen. In 2015 she starred in writer-director Victor Levin's romantic dramedy 5 to 7 (2014), which had its world premiere at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. Marlohe stars opposite Anton Yelchin (Star Trek) as an aspiring novelist in New York who has a 5-to-7 affair with the wife of a French diplomat (Bérénice Marlohe). IFC released the film in April 2015. This year , Bérénice wrapped on Tim Smit's "Redivider" and Lech Majewski's Valley of the Gods (2019) where she appears alongside Josh Hartnett, Charlotte Rampling and John Malkovich. In 2017 Bérénice will appear in both Joe Miale's sci-fi thriller Revolt (2017) opposite Lee Pace and Terrence Malick's "Weightless" alongside an amazing ensemble cast that includes Christian Bale, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. She will also appear in David Lynch's Twin Peaks (2017) alongside Naomi Watts, Laura Dern and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Bérénice Marlohe was born in Paris, France and is of French, Chinese and Cambodian descent .
- Actress
- Music Department
- Producer
Brigitte Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, France. Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance, and she proved to be very adept at it. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modeling career, and found herself in the French magazine "Elle". Her incredible beauty readily apparent, Brigitte next tried films. In 1952, she appeared on screen for the first time as Javotte Lemoine in Crazy for Love (1952). Two more films followed and it was also the same year she married Roger Vadim (the union lasted 3½ years). Capitalizing on her success in French films, Brigitte made her first American production in Act of Love (1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France. Brigitte's explosive sexuality took the United States by storm, and the effect she had on millions of American men who had not seen a woman like her in a long, long time--if ever--was electric. Rise to the phrase "sex kitten" and fascination of her in the United States consisted of magazines photographs and dubbed over French films--good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences--mainly men--into theaters like lemmings. In 1965, she appeared as herself in the American-made Dear Brigitte (1965) with James Stewart (she only appeared in one scene). Just before she turned 40, Brigitte retired from movies after filming The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (1973). She prefers life outside of stardom. While it enabled her to become internationally famous, it also carried with it annoyances. It was not anything for her to have "fans" enter her house or wander around the grounds of her home in the hopes of getting a glimpse of her or to take something that belonged to her. Paparazzi constantly hounded her with their cameras. She has been so soft-hearted that some people even have taken advantage of her generosity. After her life in the spotlight, Brigitte went on to become a leading spokesperson for animal rights and started the "Foundation Brigitte Bardot" dedicated solely to that cause. Her work in that realm is, perhaps, far greater than any film she could have made. Brigitte has been married to Bernard d'Ormale since 1992 and they reside in St. Tropez with their nearly 50 pets.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Judith Godrèche was born on 23 March 1972 in Paris, France. She is an actress and writer, known for The Overnight (2015), The Spanish Apartment (2002) and The Man in the Iron Mask (1998).- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Noémie Merlant is a French actress, writer and director, she is best known for Le ciel attendra (2016), Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019), Curiosa (2019), and Tár (2022).
She won an César Awards for best supporting actress to her role in L'innocent (2022).
She also starred in Les Olympiades Paris 13e (2021) an had a minor role in Un moment d'égarement (2015).- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Virginie Ledoyen was born Virginie Fernandez on 15 November 1976 in
Aubervilliers, near Paris. At the age of 2, she was already shooting
advertisements for television. At 9, she started going to the École des
Enfants du Spectacle, and made her film debut at 10 in
What Every Frenchwoman Wants (1986).
She was then nominated for the César (the French equivalent of an
Oscar) for most promising actress in 1993, 1994 and 1995.
Her international breakthrough was in 1999, when she became ambassador
for the cosmetics L'Oréal; this led to her casting in
The Beach (2000), with
Leonardo DiCaprio.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Sebastian Roché is a Scottish-French actor, known for his roles as Kurt Mendel on Odyssey 5 (2002), Thomas Jerome Newton on Fringe (2008), Martin Heusmann on The Man in the High Castle (2015), Michel Marivaux on The Young Pope (2016), Balthazar on Supernatural (2005), and Mikael on both The Vampire Diaries (2009) and The Originals (2013). His film work includes A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) and Beowulf (2007).
Roché was born in Paris, France to a French father, Philippe Roché, and a Scottish mother, Gail Stewart. From age 12 to 18, he lived on a sailboat with his parents and two brothers, traveling to the Mediterranean, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. He is a graduate of the prestigious French National Academy of Dramatic Arts. Roché also studied at the Cours Florent and the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre. Upon his graduation in 1989, Roché started working in French theater, films and television.
In 2002, Roché began portraying Kurt Mendel in the Canadian science fiction series Odyssey 5 (2002) for Showtime. In 2007, Roché began appearing in the ABC soap opera General Hospital (1963) as criminal Jerry Jacks. In 2010, Roché joined the recurring cast of The CW's drama series Supernatural (2005). He was next cast in the Fox sci-fi drama series Fringe (2008), recurring in the second and third seasons as Thomas Jerome Newton, a main antagonist of the series. In 2011, Roché began recurring as Mikael, the father of the Original Vampires, in The CW's supernatural drama series The Vampire Diaries (2009) and its spin-off series, The Originals (2013).
In 2016, Roché co-starred in the Paolo Sorrentino's miniseries The Young Pope (2016), alongside Jude Law and James Cromwell, and had a recurring role as Martin Heusmann in the drama series The Man in the High Castle (2015).
Roché has lived in the United States since 1992. He met Vera Farmiga in 1997 while starring together in the Fox adventure series Roar (1997), and married her that same year. After seven years of marriage, Roché and Farmiga separated and were subsequently divorced. On May 31, 2014, he married Australian actress Alicia Hannah-Kim in a private ceremony in Mercuès, France.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Emmanuelle Seigner is the daughter of a well known photographer and her mother is
a journalist. She was born in Paris, France on June 22, 1966. Her
grandfather was Louis Seigner, chairman of the Comédie Française and
who also appeared in several movies. Emmanuelle was raised at a convent
school . At age fourteen she became a model. Her mysterious beauty made
her an international cover-model. Jean-Luc Godard gave her a part in his crime
movie Detective (1985), starring Johnny Hallyday and Nathalie Baye. In 1986 Emmanuelle played
the part of Zanon a young girl in the movie Cours privé (1986)
(by Pierre Granier-Deferre). She met Roman Polanski and married him. He gave her a part
in the thriller Frantic (1988) with Harrison Ford. Four years later Polanski gave
her the leading part in the movie Bitter Moon (1992).- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Mathieu Kassovitz was born on 3 August 1967 in Paris, France. He is an actor and director, known for Amélie (2001), La haine (1995) and The Fifth Element (1997).- Son of a nurse and a bank employee, Benoît Magimel was born in Paris
and grew up there. At age 12, he played Momo in Life Is a Long Quiet River (1988) by Étienne Chatiliez. He
stopped his studies at age 16 to become an actor.
But he had a dual personality: on one hand the man of low budget films
like A Single Girl (1995), A Minute of Silence (1998), Le roi danse (2000), Déjà mort (1998), Thieves (1996), To Matthieu (2000) alongside
Nathalie Baye, The Flower of Evil (2003), Errance (2003), Children of the Century (1999) with Juliette Binoche, The Bridesmaid (2004) with Laura Smet,
The Piano Teacher (2001) alongside Isabelle Huppert, and on the other hand also wide audience
releases like The Nest (2002), Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse (2004), Trouble (2005), Strange Gardens (2003), and Sky Fighters (2005).
Charming, ambiguous, talented Benoit Magimel will probably illuminate
the next decade, and more. - Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Geraldine Hakewill is an Australian actress, singer, and songwriter. She is known for playing Chelsea Babbage, the lead role, in the 2016 Australian TV series Wanted and Peregrine Fisher in Ms Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries. Hakewill was born in Paris, where her family was living temporarily while her father, Peter, a general practitioner, was working in tropical disease management. At nine months old, her family moved to Geneva, Switzerland, then to Chennai in south India so that her parents could practice meditation in an ashram; her mother Elizabeth continues to teach meditation. Hakewill grew up in Sydney from age four with her younger brother, Lucas. When she was 14 years old her parents divorced and her father remarried, giving her two step-siblings and two half-siblings. Hakewill graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
When people gave Louis Malle credit for making a star of Jeanne Moreau in
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) immediately followed by The Lovers (1958), he would point out that Moreau
by that time had already been "recognized as the prime stage actress of
her generation." She had made it to the Comédie Française in her 20s.
She had appeared in B-movie thrillers with Jean Gabin and Ascenseur was in
that genre. The technicians at the film lab went to the producer after
seeing the first week of dailies for Ascenseur and said: "You must not
let Malle destroy Jeanne Moreau". Malle explained: "She was lit only by
the windows of the Champs Elysées. That had never been done. Cameramen
would have forced her to wear a lot of make-up and they would put a lot
of light on her, because, supposedly, her face was not photogenic".
This lack of artifice revealed Moreau's "essential qualities: she could
be almost ugly and then ten seconds later she would turn her face and
would be incredibly attractive. But she would be herself".
Moreau has told interviewers that the characters she played were not
her. But even the most famous film critic of his generation, Roger Ebert,
thinks that she is a lot like her most enduring role, Catherine in
François Truffaut's Jules and Jim (1962). Behind those eyes and that enigmatic smile is a
woman with a mind. In a review of The Clothes in the Wardrobe (1993) Ebert wrote: "Jeanne Moreau
has been a treasure of the movies for 35 years... Here, playing a
flamboyant woman who nevertheless keeps her real thoughts closely
guarded, she brings about a final scene of poetic justice as perfect as
it is unexpected".
Moreau made her debut as a director in Lumiere (1976) -- also writing the
script and playing Sarah, an actress the same age as Moreau whose
romances are often with directors for the duration of making a film.
She made several films with Malle.
Still active in international cinema, Moreau presided over the jury of
the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.- Actress
- Casting Department
Julie Dreyfus was born in Paris, France. After studying interior design, she moved to Japan as a young adult and made her debut on Japanese T.V. She became fluent in Japanese and English and appeared in several American movies as well. She is very well known in Japan but is also known internationally for her roles in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) and Inglourious Basterds (2009).- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Offbeat comic actress and voice specialist Yeardley Smith has made a virtue out
of her distinctive looks, small figure, and child-like nasal tones.
Lending vocal life to the animated role of "Lisa Simpson," the
intelligent, caring, saxophone-droning, vegetarian member of the
Simpson family, has been her bread-and-butter job for over a remarkable 30 years.
While Yeardley is American, she was born Martha Maria Yeardley Smith on July 3, 1964, in Paris, France where her father served
as a correspondent with UPI. By the time she was two, she and her
family had moved to Washington, D.C., where she was raised. A shy,
introverted child, she started her pixie-like young career as a
teenager at a nearby dinner theater where she played "Tinkerbell" in a
musical adaptation of "Peter Pan". After receiving her high school
diploma, she apprenticed for a time at the famed Arena Stage, then
headed off to New York and bigger things.
Yeardley understudied the role of "Debbie" on Broadway in
Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing", starring
Jeremy Irons and
Glenn Close, then took over the part for
eight months. Small film offers started coming her way with
Heaven Help Us (1985) and
The Legend of Billie Jean (1985),
so in 1986, she headed West and settled. After some work on the LA
stage with "Boys and Girls/Men and Women" (1987) and "How the Other
Half Loves" (1988) and a recurring role on the ground-breaking gay
comedy, Brothers (1984), Yeardley
won the part of daughter "Lisa Simpson". The animated character was
launched on the sketch TV comedy series,
The Tracey Ullman Show (1987).
Two years later, she spun off into
The Simpsons (1989) and still
going strong after 20 years.
Yeardley has made the TV rounds on-camera as well with amusing guest
appearances on
Dharma & Greg (1997) (recurring), "Murphy Brown," "Empty Next" and "Mama's Family." She also had
regular role for three seasons as "Louise" on
Herman's Head (1991). Other
film supports during that time included roles in
City Slickers (1991),
Jingle All the Way (1996) and
As Good as It Gets (1997).
Yeardley continues to be quite active well into the millennium. In 2004, Yeardley performed front-and-center in her own one-woman autobiographical show entitled "More" in New York. Other comedic and occasional dramatic film parts include the Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back by Midnight (2004), an animated full-length The Simpsons Movie (2007), Waiting for Ophelia (2009), High School (2010), Tug (2010), Virginia (2010), The Chaperone (2011), Miles (2016), All Square (2018), Love & Debt (2019) and Gossamer Folds (2020). On TV, Yeardley appeared as a guest on "Becker," "The Big Bang Theory," "Hot in Cleveland" and "Mom."
Married and divorced twice, Yeardley's first husband was actor Christopher Grove.- Actress
Ella Rumpf was born on 4 February 1995 in Paris, France. She is an actress, known for Raw (2016), Tiger Girl (2017) and Marguerite's Theorem (2023).- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of
four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a
doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a
preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II Godard became a
naturalized citizen of Switzerland and attended school in Nyons,
Switzerland. His parents divorced in 1948, at which time he returned
to Paris to attend the Lycée Rohmer. In 1949 he studied at the Sorbonne
to prepare for a degree in ethnology. However, it was during this time
that he began attending with
François Truffaut,
Jacques Rivette, and
Éric Rohmer.
In 1950 Godard, with Rivette and Rohmer, founded "Gazette du cinéma",
which published five issues between May and November. He wrote a number
of articles for the journal, often using the pseudonym "Hans Lucas".
After Godard worked on and financed two films by Rivette and Rohmer,
Godard's family cut off their financial support in 1951, and he
resorted to a Bohemian lifestyle that included stealing food and money
when necessary. In January 1952 he began writing film criticism for
"Les cahiers du cinéma". Later that year he traveled to North and South
America with his father and attempted to make his first film (of which
only a tracking shot from a car was ever accomplished).
In 1953 he returned to Paris briefly before securing a job as a
construction worker on a dam project in Switzerland. With the money
from the job, he made a short film in 1954 about the building of the
dam called Operation Concrete (1958). Later that year his mother was killed in a
motor scooter accident in Switzerland. In 1956 Godard began writing
again for "Les cahiers du cinéma" as well as for the journal "Arts". In
1957 Godard worked as the press attache for "Artistes Associés", and
made his first French film, All Boys Are Called Patrick (1959).
In 1958 he shot Charlotte and Her Boyfriend (1958), his homage to
Jean Cocteau. Later that year he took
unused footage of a flood in Paris shot by Truffaut and edited it into
a film called A Story of Water (1961), which was an homage to
Mack Sennett. In 1959 he worked with
Truffaut on the weekly publication "Temps de Paris". Godard wrote a
gossip column for the journal, but also spent much time writing
scenarios for films and a body of critical writings which placed him
firmly in the forefront of the "nouvelle vague" aesthetic, precursing
the French New Wave.
It was also in that year Godard began work on
Breathless (1960). In 1960 he married
Anna Karina in Switzerland. In April and May
he shot The Little Soldier (1963) in
Geneva and was preparing the film for a fall release in Paris. However,
French censors banned it due to its references to the Algerian war, and
it was not shown until 1963. In March 1960
Breathless (1960)
premiered in Paris. It was hugely successful both with the film critics
and at the box office, and became a landmark film in the French New
Wave with its references to American cinema, its jagged editing and
overall romantic/cinephilia approach to filmmaking. The film propelled
the popularity of male lead
Jean-Paul Belmondo with European
audiences.
In 1961 Godard shot
A Woman Is a Woman (1961),
his first film using color widescreen stock. Later that year he
participated in the collective effort to remake the film
The Seven Deadly Sins (1962),
which was heralded as an important project in artistic collaboration.
In 1962 Godard shot
Vivre sa vie (1962)
in Paris, his first commercial success since "Breathless". Later
that year he shot a segment entitled "Le Nouveau Monde" for the
collective film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963),
another important work in the history of collaborative
multiple-authored art.
In 1963 Godard completed a film in homage to
Jean Vigo entitled
The Carabineers (1963), which was
a resounding failure with the public and stirred furious controversy
with film critics. Also that year he worked on a couple of collective
films:
The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers (1964)
(from which Godard's sequence was later cut) and
Six in Paris (1965). In 1964
Godard and his wife Anna Karina formed their own production company,
Anouchka Films. They shot a film called
A Married Woman (1964),
which censors forced them to re-edit due to a topless sunbathing scene
shot by Jacques Rozier. The censors also
made Godard change the title to "Une femme marié" so as to not give the
impression that this "scandalous" woman was the typical French wife.
Later in the year, two French television programs were produced in
devotion to Godard's work.
In the spring of 1965 Godard shot
Alphaville (1965)
in Paris; in the summer he shot
Pierrot the Fool (1965) in Paris and
the south of France. Shortly thereafter he and Anna Karina separated.
Following their divorce, Godard shot
Made in U.S.A (1966), "Deux ou
trois choses que je sais d'elle (1966)", "L'amour en l'an 2000" (1966)
(a sequel to "Alphaville" shot as a sketch for the collective film
"L'amour travers les ages" (1966)).
In 1967 Godard shot
The Chinese (1967) in Paris with
Anne Wiazemsky, who was the granddaughter
of French novelist François Mauriac.
During the making of the film Godard and Wiazemsky were married in
Paris. Later in the year he was prevented from traveling to North
Vietnam for the shooting of a sequence for the collective film
Far from Vietnam (1967). He
instead shot the sequence in Paris, entitled "Camera-Oeil". Also during
1967 Godard participated (as the only Frenchman) on an Italian
collective film called
Love and Anger (1969).
In 1968 Godard was commissioned by French television to make
Joy of Learning (1969). However,
television producers were so outraged by the product Godard produced
that they refused to show it. In May of that year
Henri Langlois was fired by the head of
the French Jean-Pierre Gorin to form
the Dziga-Vertov group, infuriating Godard. He became increasingly
concerned with socialist solutions to an idealist cinema, especially in
providing the proletariat with the means of production and
distribution. Along with other militantly political filmmakers in the
Dziga-Vertov group, Godard published a series of 'Ciné-Tracts'
outlining these viewpoints. In the summer of 1968 Godard traveled to
New York City and Berkeley, California, to shoot the film "One American
Movie", which was never completed. In September he made a trip to
Canada to start another film called "Communication(s)", which also went
unfinished, and then made a visit to Cuba before returning to France.
In 1969 Godard traveled to England, where he made the film
See You at Mao (1970) for BBC
Weekend Television, but the network later refused to show it. In the
late spring he traveled with the Dziga-Vertov group to Prague to
secretly shoot the film "Pravda". Later that year he shot
Lotte in Italia (1971) ("Struggle
for Italy") for Italian television. It was never shown, either.
In 1970 Godard traveled to Lebanon to shoot a film for the Palestinian
Liberation Organization entitled "Jusque à la victoire" (1970) ("Until
Victory"). Later that year he traveled to dozens of American
universities trying to raise money for the film. In spite of his
efforts, it was never released.- Julie Engelbrecht was born on 30 June 1984 in Paris, France. She is an actress, known for The Last Witch Hunter (2015), The Strain (2014) and Before the Fall (2004).
- Olivier Martinez comes from a working-class family, raised in the Paris
suburbs. He left school at an early age, holding various pick-up jobs
such as salesman for jeans. Friends urged him to try acting, and at age
23 he enrolled in the International Conservatory of Paris. After
several television shows, he reached the international market with
The Horseman on the Roof (1995), billed in his American promotional tour for that movie as "the
French Brad Pitt". - Actress
- Director
- Soundtrack
Anne Parillaud was born in Paris, France on May 6, 1960 and even though
all her travels took her to many lands, is still a Paris resident. Anne
studied ballet in school, and her first appearance was in the film
Un amour de sable (1977) where
she played "La jeune fille avec un petit chat" ("The girl with a
kitten"). However, her first real role was as "Estelle" in
L'Hôtel de la plage (1978)
and, even though she had only appeared in this film during summer
vacation, by then she had caught the show business bug. Anne was in
eight other films, and then she gave her breakout performance in her
signature role as "Nikita" in the wildly popular
La Femme Nikita (1990), which spun off the American
remake
Point of No Return (1993)
starring Bridget Fonda, and the USA
Network television series
La Femme Nikita (1997)
starring Peta Wilson. Anne had taken judo
lessons for three months to prepare for this part. Anne said that when
acting, she can abandon herself; indeed the character Nikita is nothing
like her. Anne hates guns and even said of Nikita: "For a while, she
was in me like a demon".
When it comes to which films and directors to work with, Anne has her
one rule: it must touch her heart. Obviously director
Luc Besson touched her heart, they had a
daughter together, but the couple separated shortly after
La Femme Nikita (1990); (in 1997, Besson was
briefly married to Milla Jovovich, but
they divorced). Anne traveled to America to do several films, including
Innocent Blood (1992), in which
she plays a French vampire. She said of her character "Marie", that she
wasn't born a vampire, didn't decide to be one; in that sense, the
movie is a parable about dealing with the problem of being different in
society. And difference equates to loneliness. Anne is still busy
appearing in movies. Offscreen, Anne enjoys simple pleasures such as
dancing, and talking with friends. And she is always led by her heart,
Anne says she is someone who lives by impulse first. Her many fans
would say it seems she has made a lot of right choices.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Louis Garrel was born on 14 June 1983 in Paris, France. He is an actor and director, known for The Dreamers (2003), Little Women (2019) and The Innocent (2022). He has been married to Laetitia Casta since 10 June 2017. They have one child. He was previously married to Golshifteh Farahani.- Yael Grobglas is a French-Israeli actress based in Los Angeles.
She is known for her roles of Petra Solano and her twin sister Anezka in the critically acclaimed CW series "Jane the Virgin", the feature "Interview with God" and a number of recurring roles on television series including "Reign" and "Supergirl". Over the five seasons of Jane the Virgin, Yael's performance as Petra and Anezka have been praised in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, Washington Post, TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. Time Magazine described her performance: "Grobglas...has turned Petra into one of television's most amusingly complex comic villains. Fans love to hate her, yet as Jane delves deeper into Petra's backstory - and shows off her lighter side - they're starting to love to love her as well."
Her talent and passion for performing arts became visible even as a young girl. As a teenager, Grobglas studied and performed in professional dance and ballet groups. She later lead a brief modeling career and participated in a number of runway shows and advertising campaigns. Eventually having realized a greater interest in acting, Grobglas graduated from the Yoram Loewenstein Performing Arts Studio in Tel Aviv.
Before transitioning to Hollywood, Yael had a successful TV, Film and Theater career in Israel. In 2007, Grobglas was cast to her first major role for the Israeli sci-fi series Ha'Yi ("The Island"), which made her popular among Israel's young adult audiences. Following two consecutive seasons of the show Grobglas enrolled in a full-time three-year acting program at the Yoram Loewenstein Performing Arts Studio. She completed the third season of Ha'Yi in 2010, and was cast for a number of major commercials during the course of her studies. In 2010, Grobglas gained international recognition when she starred in the first Israeli horror film Rabies ("Kalevet"). She was part of the main cast of the Israeli sitcom Ha-Shualim ("The Foxes"). Grobglas also played the role of Linda Christie in a Beersheba Theater adaptation of Play It Again, Sam. In 2012, Grobglas was cast to the Israeli comedy-drama series Tanuchi ("Chill").
In 2013, Grobglas made the move to Los Angeles and was promptly cast as the lead in the CW's The Selection pilot, described as a cross between The Bachelor and The Hunger Games, but it was ultimately not picked up to series. In the same year, her roles included the lead in an Israeli film "Jeruzalem", and the recurring role of Olivia D'Amencourt in the CW's series "Reign".
In 2014, Grobglas was cast as Petra, one of the main characters on the CW's "Jane the Virgin". When describing her experience as Petra to the New York Times, Grobglas said, "I'm usually cast for the more goofy and tomboyish characters. I'm having a wonderful time playing someone so complex and layered and funny." "She's calculating, resourceful and manipulative," she said. "But even though I don't agree with the decisions she makes, you have to admire her. It's been a blast playing such a mischievous character because she's so unlike me." In March 2016, TVLine gave Grobglas an honorable mention for her performance in Jane the Virgin Chapter 36: "Leave it to Jane the Virgin's unsung MVP Yael Grobglas to turn the painful process of giving birth - to twins, no less! - into a comedic tour de force ... After witnessing Grobglas' impeccable ability to mix humor and emotion, we can't wait to see what challenges (and laughs) motherhood will bring for her character."
Between 2016-2019, while filming Jane the Virgin, Yael had guest and recurring roles in the CWs "Crazy Ex Girlfriend" and "Supergirl" and starred in the 2018 Feature "Interview with God". - Actress
- Soundtrack
Lydia Leonard was born on 5 December 1981 in Paris, France. She is an actress, known for The Fifth Estate (2013), Last Christmas (2019) and Da Vinci's Demons (2013).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Chiara Mastroianni was born on 28 May 1972 in Paris, France. She is an actress, known for Persepolis (2007), Ready to Wear (1994) and Beloved (2011). She was previously married to Benjamin Biolay.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Claudine Auger, a former Miss France 1st Runner-up (1958), received her dramatic
training at the Paris Drama Conservatory and is best known to US / UK
audiences as the stunning brunette "Domino" opposite
Sean Connery in the James Bond thriller
Thunderball (1965), She has kept
fairly busy since her Bond days, acting in a number of Italian, French
and Spanish films including
The Bermuda Triangle (1978),
Credo (1983), and
La bocca (1991).- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Zabou Breitman was born on 30 October 1959 in Paris, France. She is an actress and director, known for Se souvenir des belles choses (2001), The Swallows of Kabul (2019) and The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak (1984). She was previously married to Fabien Chalon.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Noam Jenkins was born on 31 December 1983 in Paris, France. He is an actor and director, known for Watch Dogs (2014), 54 (1998) and Saw II (2005).