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French Actress Marion Cotillard

Marion Cotillard (born 30 September 1975) is a French actress. She garnered critical acclaim for her roles in films such as My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument, Taxi, Furia, Pretty Things and Inception.

She has also appeared in such films as Big Fish, A Very Long Engagement (for which she received a César Award for Best Supporting Actress), A Good Year, Public Enemies, Nine and La Vie En Rose.

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, BAFTA Award for Best Actress, César for Best Actress and the Golden Globe for Best Actress in Musical or a Comedy for her portrayal of French singer Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. She made film history by becoming the first person to win an Academy Award for a French language performance. In 2010 she received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the musical Nine.

FAMILY

French Actress Marion Cotillard

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, was born in March 1909 and still lives in Plémet, Brittany; she recently celebrated her 101st birthday). Cotillard’s 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.

» EARLY WORK (1993–2002)
After small appearances and performances in theater, Cotillard had occasional and minor roles in television series such as Highlander, but her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s with small but noticeable roles in such films as Arnaud Desplechin’s My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument. Cotillard appeared in the comedy film La belle verte, directed by Coline Serreau. Then came her breakthrough out of cinephiles’ circles when she starred in Gérard Pirès’s action comedy Taxi. In the film, she plays Lili Bertineau who becomes Daniel’s girlfriend. Cotillard reprised the role in two sequels. She then ventured into anticipation science fiction with Alexandre Aja’s Furia (1999).
Cotillard appeared in Pierre Grimblat’s film Lisa as Young Lisa, alongside Jeanne Moreau, Swiss novel-adaptation War drama In The Highlands. She starred in Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s film Les jolies choses, adapted from the work of subversive feminist writer Virginie Despentes. In the drama, Cotillard portrayed the characters of two twins of completely opposite characters, Lucy and Marie. She was nominated for a Cesar Award for her performance. In Guillaume Nicloux’s thriller Une affaire privée she appeared as Clarisse, friend of the disappeared.

» BREAKTHROUGH (2003–2006)

French Actress Marion Cotillard

Cotillard starred with Guillaume Canet in the romantic comedy film Love Me If You Dare as Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants. The film was directed by Yann Samuel. Cotillard had a notable supporting role in Tim Burton’s film Big Fish, where she appeared alongside Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange and Allison Lohman. In the film she plays Joséphine, the French wife of William Bloom. She appeared in two critically successful films, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement as Tina Lombardi, for which she won an César Award for Best Supporting Actress, and appeared in the mystery thriller Innocence as Mademoiselle Éva.

In 2005, Cotillard starred in Steve Suissa’s romantic drama Cavalcade as Alizée. She also appeared in Abel Ferrara’s religious drama Mary alongside Forest Whitaker and Juliette Binoche. Marion played Isabelle Kruger and Alice in the thriller film La Boîte noire, directed by Richard Berry. She appeared in the film Fair Play as Nicole. Cotillard starred in Ridley Scott ‘s romantic comedy A Good Year, in which she portrayed Fanny Chenal, a small Provençal town French café owner opposite Russell Crowe as a Londoner who inherits a local property. She appeared in Belgian comedy Dikkenek, and learned to play the cello for her role as a concertist in the satirical coming-of-age film You and Me.

» CRITICAL SUCCESS (2007–PRESENT)
he was chosen by director Olivier Dahan to portray the French singer Édith Piaf in the biopic La Vie en Rose before he had even met her, saying that he noticed a similarity between Piaf’s and Cotillard’s eyes. Producer Ilan 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.

On February 10, 2008, Cotillard became the first French actress to be awarded the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role since Stéphane Audran in 1973. 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).

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. Cotillard is the second French cinema actress to win this award and the third overall to receive an Academy Award. 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, on February 24, 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 a Czech Lion Award for Best Actress. She could not attend the ceremony in Prague due to the filming of Public Enemies. Her friend Pavlína Němcová – who played the journalist in La vie en Rose – was there to accept the award on her behalf.

On June 24, 2008, Cotillard was one of 105 individuals invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Cotillard starred alongside Johnny Depp in Public Enemies, released in the United States on July 1, 2009. Later that year, Cotillard appeared in the film adaptation of the musical Nine, directed by Rob Marshall, and co-starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren and Kate Hudson. On December 15, 2009, Cotillard was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for her performance in the film. The film was released on December 18, 2009.

For her role in the musical Nine as Luisa Contini, Time magazine ranked her as the fifth best performance by a female in 2009. She was ranked just behind Mo’Nique, Carey Mulligan, Saoirse Ronan, and Meryl Streep. She was awarded the Desert Palm Achievement Actress Award at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival for the role.

She appeared as the main antagonist “Mal Cobb” in Christopher Nolan’s film Inception, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page, and released on July 16, 2010. She will co-star alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Matt Damon in Steven Soderberg’s thriller film Contagion.

She will also in appear in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris alongside Rachel McAdams and Owen Wilson.
On March 15th, Cotillard was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Letters) by the French government for her “contribution to the enrichment of French culture”.
On May 11th, Variety confirmed Cotillard will star alongside Colin Farrell in David Cronenberg’s film Cosmopolis.

French Actress Marion Cotillard