Marion Cotillard
Marion Cotillard (French: [maʁjɔ̃ kɔtijaʁ] ⓘ; born 30 September 1975)[2] is a French actress. She has appeared in independent films and blockbusters in both European and Hollywood productions and her accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, a European Film Award, a Lumières Award and two César Awards. She became a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2010, and was promoted to Officer in 2016, the same year she was named a Knight of the Legion of Honour. She has served as a spokeswoman for Greenpeace since 2001.[3][4] She was the face of the Lady Dior handbag for nine years, and since 2020 she is the face of the fragrance Chanel No. 5.
Marion Cotillard
Cotillard started acting as a child in theatre and in TV films. She had her first English-language role in the TV series Highlander (1993), and made her feature film debut in The Story of a Boy Who Wanted to Be Kissed (1994). Her breakthrough came in the successful French film Taxi (1998), which earned her a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress. She made her Hollywood debut in Big Fish (2003), and won her first César Award for Best Supporting Actress for A Very Long Engagement (2004). She had her major English-language role up to that point in A Good Year (2006).
For her portrayal of French singer Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose (2007), Cotillard won her second César Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Lumières Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first and (as of 2024) only actor to win an Academy Award for a French-language performance, and also the second actress to have won this award for a non-English language performance. She earned several critics' awards for The Immigrant (2013) and Two Days, One Night (2014), three more Golden Globe nominations for Nine (2009), Rust and Bone (2012), and Annette (2021), and received a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for Two Days, One Night in 2015, her second nomination for a French-language film, becoming one of only seven actors to receive multiple Academy Award nominations for non-English language performances. She has continued to star in major English-language films such as Public Enemies (2009), Inception (2010), Contagion (2011), Midnight in Paris (2011), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Macbeth (2015), Allied (2016), Annette (2021), and Lee (2023).
Cotillard has played Joan of Arc on stage in several countries between 2005 and 2022 in the oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake. She has narrated several documentaries and provided voice acting for the animated films The Little Prince (2015), April and the Extraordinary World (2015), the French version of Minions (2015), Charlotte (2021), and The Inventor (2023). Her other notable French, Belgian and Canadian films include La Belle Verte (1996), Pretty Things (2001), Love Me If You Dare (2003), Dikkenek (2006), Little White Lies (2010), It's Only the End of the World (2016), and Little Girl Blue (2023).
Early life[edit]
Cotillard was born on 30 September 1975 in Paris and grew up around Orléans in an artistically inclined household.[2][5] Her mother, Niseema Theillaud, is an actress and drama teacher.[1][6] Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, is an actor, teacher, former mime, and theatre director, of Breton descent.[1] She has two younger twin brothers, Quentin and Guillaume.[1][7] Cotillard's father introduced her to cinema, and as a child she would mimic Louise Brooks and Greta Garbo in her own bedroom.[1]
She began acting during her childhood, appearing in one of her father's plays.[8] At the age of 3, she appeared on stage for the first time opposite her mother.[9]
At the age of 15, Cotillard entered the Conservatoire d'art dramatique in Orléans.[10] She graduated in 1994 and then moved to Paris to pursue an acting career.[5]
In order to pay her bills in her teens, she started making key-chains in her own factory at home and sold them at candy stores.[11][12]
Cotillard speaks French and English fluently.[13] She learned English at the age of 11.[14] She started learning Spanish at school but then abandoned it.[15] Years later, she began studying the language again after watching Lovers of the Arctic Circle (1998) by Julio Medem, which is one of her favorite films.[15] She also started learning Danish because she wanted to work with director Thomas Vinterberg after watching his 1998 film The Celebration, but that did not work out.[16]
Acting career[edit]
Early work in France and transition to Hollywood (1982–2006)[edit]
In 1982, at the age of 7, Cotillard made her on-screen debut in the short film Le monde des tout-petits,[17][18] directed by Claude Cailloux and broadcast by the French TV channel TF1.[19] The following year, she appeared in another TV short film for TF1, Lucie, also directed by Cailloux.[19] In 1991, she appeared in a TV spot against alcoholism titled "Tu t'es vu quand t'as bu?" ("You've seen yourself when you're drunk?"),[19] launched by the French Committee for Health Education.[20]
After small appearances and performances in theatre, Cotillard had occasional, minor roles in television series such as Highlander in 1993,[21] where she had her first English-speaking role aged 17.[11] Her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s, with minor roles in Philippe Harel's The Story of a Boy Who Wanted to Be Kissed (1994), which was her feature film debut at the age of 18,[13] and in Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life... or How I Got into an Argument, and Coline Serreau's La Belle Verte, both released in 1996.[22] Also in 1996, she had her first leading role in the television film Chloé,[23][24] directed by Dennis Berry and opposite Anna Karina, with Cotillard starring as a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution.[25]
In 1998, she appeared in Gérard Pirès' action comedy Taxi, playing Lilly Bertineau, the girlfriend of delivery boy Daniel, played by Samy Naceri.[2] The film was a box office hit in France with over 6 millions tickets sold,[26] and Cotillard was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress.[27] She reprised the role in Taxi 2 (2000) and Taxi 3 (2003).[2][28]
Other endeavours[edit]
Music[edit]
Cotillard sings,[174] plays guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and tambourine.[175] She co-wrote and performed the song "La Fille De Joie" for her 2001 film Pretty Things (Les Jolies Choses),[176] in which she played a singer and also performed the song "La Conne" for the film. Canadian singer Hawksley Workman said in interviews about his album Between the Beautifuls that he worked and wrote songs with Cotillard while they both were in Los Angeles during the 2007–2008 movie awards season.[177] In 2008, she co-wrote and performed the song "The Strong Ones" with Hawksley Workman for Olivier Dahan's short film for Cartier's Love range.[178] In 2010, Cotillard recorded the songs "Five Thousand Nights" and "Happy Crowd" with the French Rock band Yodelice for their album "Cardioid". She also went on tour with the band in different cities in France and Belgium, under the pseudonym "Simone", which is her maternal grandmother's name.[179] In the same year, she appeared in the music video "More Than Meets the Eyes" by Yodelice.[180]
Cotillard recorded the song "The Eyes of Mars" with the band Franz Ferdinand especially for Dior. In 2012, she wrote and performed the song "Lily's Body" for the fourth episode of the Lady Dior Web Documentary with the same title,[181] and in 2014, Cotillard wrote and performed the song "Snapshot in LA" alongside John Cameron Mitchell, Metronomy's Joseph Mount and Villaine. She also wrote and co-directed the video for the song, made for Lady Dior's advertising campaign "Enter the Game – Dior Cruise 2015".[182]
Personal life[edit]
Cotillard was a vegetarian for twelve years during her youth, but she said she had to give up after falling ill because back then she had no idea about nutrition and just quit eating meat overnight and did not know she had to get protein from other sources to avoid a deficiency, which hurt her a lot physically.[235]
In the late 1990s, Cotillard was in a relationship with French actor Julien Rassam.[236] She had a long-term relationship with French actor Stéphan Guérin-Tillié from 2000 to 2005, with whom she co-starred in the short films Quelques jours de trop (2000) and Heureuse (2001), in the 2001 TV series Les redoutables, and in the 2005 feature films Cavalcade and Edy.[237] She dated French singer Sinclair from 2005 to 2007.[238][239]
Since October 2007, Cotillard has been in a relationship with French actor and director Guillaume Canet.[240][241] They had been friends since 1997,[242] and co-starred together for the first time years later in the 2003 film Love Me If You Dare. Despite common misconception, the couple are not married. Though since 2010 Cotillard has been spotted wearing a diamond solitaire on her left hand —a present from Canet— they are not engaged either.[243] In 2014, Cotillard denied being married to Canet,[244] instead referring to him as "my boyfriend" in interviews.[245][246][247][248] In 2011, they had their first child, a son, Marcel,[249] and in 2017, their second child, a daughter, Louise was born.[250][251]
In January 2018, Cotillard told The Hollywood Reporter that with her then 6-year-old son entering school and a newborn daughter, she would be slowing down her filming schedule for the time being.[252] In a May 2023 interview with British magazine A Rabbit's Foot, she explained that she slowed down in order to protect her children, as she rarely chooses "lighthearted stories" and her roles were preventing her from living her life fully, citing La Vie en rose (2007) and Macbeth (2015) as examples of that.[36] "There are two kinds of actresses: those who burn themselves out, and those who manage to put the character aside and come home in the evening. Today, I'm halfway there. Since becoming a mother, I have put boundaries to protect my children", she said.[36]