Marion Cotillard Biography
Summary
"Marion Cotillard" (born September 30, 1975) is a French actress, who has appeared in almost 40 film and television productions since 1993.
Born into an acting family, Cotillard started on the stage as a child and during her teens progressed from roles in television to cinema. By the end of the 1990s she had achieved notability as a French cinema actress in such films as Arnaud Desplechin's "My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument" (1996) and "Taxi" (1998), and was seen by a wider audience in such films as "Big Fish" (2003), "A Very Long Engagement" (2004), for which she received a César Award for Best Supporting Actress, and "A Good Year" (2006).
Her portrayal of Édith Piaf in "La Vie en rose" (2007) brought international acclaim, and multiple awards including a BAFTA, a César Award, and a Golden Globe. With this film, she became the first actress to win an Academy Award for a French language performance.
Cotillard has expressed interest in environmental causes, and has served as a spokesperson for Greenpeace. She lives with her companion, actor/director Guillaume Canet.
Family
Cotillard was born in Paris and grew up around Orléans, Loiret in an artistically-inclined, 'bustling, creative household'. Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, is an actor, teacher, former mime, and 2006 Molière Award-winning director of Breton descent (his mother Léontine Cotillard still lives in Plémet, Brittany). Her mother, Niseema Theillaud, is also an actress and drama teacher. She has two younger twin brothers, Quentin and Guillaume. Quentin Cotillard is a sculptor and painter living in San Francisco, California with his wife, Elaine O'Malley Cotillard, 'a former Dutch National Ballet dancer who grew up in Marin County and is now a San Francisco fashion designer'. Guillaume Cotillard is a screenwriter and director.
Cotillard began acting during her childhood, appearing on stage in one of her father's plays.
Career
After a few roles on television, her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s with small but noticeable roles in such films as Pierre Grimblat's "Lisa" alongside Jeanne Moreau, Swiss novel-adaptation drama "War In The Highlands", Coline Serreau's comedy "La Belle Verte", or Alexandre Aja's anticipation fantasy "Furia" among other participations in established directors' productions. She rose to prominence in the late 1990s when she was cast in the Luc Besson production "Taxi" (1998) as Lili Bertineau, a minor role that she reprised in two sequels. She then earned very good reviews and the attention of cinephiles via her portrayal of twins who exchange their lives after one of them dies in "Les Jolies Choses"/"Pretty Things" adapted from the work of novelist Virginie Despentes in which she sang live on stage a couple of songs she had co-written.
In 2003, she had a supporting role in Tim Burton's film, "Big Fish", which introduced her to English-speaking audiences. She also played Sophie Kowalski in Yann Samuell's "Jeux d'enfants" (English title: "Love Me If You Dare"), in which she played the romantic lead. She appeared in two critically successful films in 2004: "A Very Long Engagement", playing the murderous Tina Lombardi (garnering the César Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role), and the drama mystery "Innocence".
In 2005, Abel Ferrara offered her a small role alongside Forest Whitaker in his religious movie "Mary" while she also played in "Burnt Out", Fabienne Godet's study of social oppression and stresses of corporate culture. In 2006, she appeared in Ridley Scott's "A Good Year", the Belgian comedy "Dikkenek" and learned to play the cello for her role as a concertist in the satirical coming of age movie "You and Me".
She was chosen by director Olivier Dahan to portray the French singer Édith Piaf in the biopic "La Môme" (English title: "La Vie En Rose") before he had even met her, saying that he noticed a similarity between Piaf's and Cotillard's eyes. Producer Alain Goldman accepted and defended the choice even though distributors TFM reduced the money they gave to finance the film thinking Cotillard wasn't 'bankable' enough an actress. Her portrayal was widely praised, including by the eminent theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn, who described it as 'one of the greatest performances on film ever.' It was dubbed 'the most awaited film of 2007' in France, where some critics said that she had reincarnated Édith Piaf to sing one last time on stage.
Cotillard in 2008
On February 10, 2008, Cotillard became the first French actress to be awarded the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role since the BAFTAs in 1969 combined the Best British and Best Foreign actress award into one Best Actress category. She is also the first actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for a French language performance since Catherine Deneuve for "Indochine" in 1992. She is the first actress to win a Golden Globe for a foreign language performance since 1972, when Liv Ullmann won for "The Emigrants". She is also the first person to win a (Comedy or Musical) Golden Globe for a foreign language performance. As "La Vie En Rose" was also a Czech production (as she mentioned in her César acceptance speech), Marion Cotillard was nominated for the Czech Lion for 'Best Actress in a Leading Role' on February 21.
On February 22, 2008, she was awarded the César Award for Best Actress, becoming the first woman and second person (after Adrien Brody, "The Pianist") to win both a Cesar and an Oscar for the same performance. Two days later, she received the Academy Award for Best Actress. After Simone Signoret in 1959, Marion Cotillard is the second French cinema actress to win this award, although French expatriate Claudette Colbert was given an Oscar in 1934. She is the first Best Actress winner in a non-English language performance since Sophia Loren's win in 1961. She is also the first and so far only winner of an Academy Award for a performance in the French language. In her Oscar acceptance speech, Cotillard proclaimed 'thank you life, thank you love' and, speaking of Los Angeles, said 'it is true, there is some angels in this city!'
The day following the ceremony, Cotillard was congratulated and praised by the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy in a statement saying, 'I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Marion Cotillard, who has just received the Oscar for Best Actress for her masterful interpretation of Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose", directed by Olivier Dahan. Half a century after Simone Signoret, a French artist has received the Best Actress award at the Oscars. It was a good omen that Catherine Allegret, Simone Signoret's daughter, herself had a role in "La Vie en Rose". Marion Cotillard embodies an Edith Piaf who is unsettling in her realism, emotion and passion. Her interpretation brings to life the story of a woman who gave French song its acclaim and authenticity; a singer, too, who closely united France and America.'
On March 1, 2008, Cotillard won the Czech film industry's highest acting honor, the Czech Lion Award for Best Actress. She could not attend the ceremony in Prague due to the filming of her next US film, "Public Enemies". Her friend Pavlina Nemcova - who played the journalist in "La vie en Rose" - was there to accept the award on her behalf.
In Cotillard's latest project, she has been cast to play Luisa Contini in the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical "Nine", alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren.
On June 24, 2008, Cotillard was the first among 105 individuals invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Personal life
Cotillard currently lives with French actor/director Guillaume Canet. They co-starred in the 2003 French film "Love Me If You Dare". Many reports say the couple prefers to live a simple lifestyle, and they are often spotted in cafes and shopping together in Paris. Both stars do not discuss their relationship with the media, although photos of the couple being affectionate regularly surface in the European tabloids. Cotillard is interested in environmental activism and has served as a spokesperson for Greenpeace allowing the organization to use her apartment to test products and being among the artists involved in 'Dessins pour le climat' (Drawings for Climate), an album project that was released in 2005 and raised money for the environmental activist group. She is a fan of Radiohead and Canadian singer Hawksley Workman; she has appeared in two of the latter's music videos, most notably 'No Reason to Cry Out your Eyes (On the Highway Tonight)'. Workman even revealed in interviews about his last album "Between The Beautifuls" that he worked and wrote songs with Cotillard while they both were in Los Angeles during the movie awards season.
In 2009, Cotillard was chosen as the face for Dior's 'Lady Dior' advertising campaign, and featured in an online mini-movie about the fictional character created by John Galliano.
Controversy
On February 29, 2008, the website of French magazine "Marianne" published quotes of an excerpt of a television interview dating back to February 16, 2007, in which she said:
She made this statement during a long conversation with host Xavier de Moulins in which "La Vie En Rose" Oscar-winning make-up artist Didier Lavergne—a close friend of the late Coluche, the controversy over whose death was mentioned just before in the discussion—intervened as well and it was edited into an approximately one hour show. At this particular moment, they were visiting the Catacombs, a famous underground ossuary, during a nocturnal walk in various places of Paris for "Paris Première", a "Paris by Night" cultural television program.
A few days later Cotillard released the statement: 'My statements on that program have been taken completely out context and been crafted into a story that has no merit.' She stressed her deep apologies regarding how her statements or their misunderstanding could have hurt anybody. Her attorney, Vincent Tolesano, said that 'Marion never intended to contest nor question the attacks of September 11, 2001; and regrets the way old remarks have been taken out of context.'
External links
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Marion Cotillard.
