Marion Cotillard

Marion Cotillard (born 30 September 1975) is a French actress.

Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters in both European and Hollywood productions, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, a European Film Award, a Lumières Award and two César Awards.

Cotillard was born on 30 September 1975 in Paris and grew up around Orléans in an artistically inclined household.

Her mother, Niseema Theillaud, is an actress and drama teacher.

Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, is an actor, teacher, former mime, and theatre director, of Breton descent.

She has two younger twin brothers, Quentin and Guillaume.

Cotillard's father introduced her to cinema, and as a child she would mimic Louise Brooks and Greta Garbo in her own bedroom.

She began acting during her childhood, appearing in one of her father's plays.

At the age of 3, she appeared on stage for the first time opposite her mother.

At the age of 15, Cotillard entered the in Orléans.

In 1982, at the age of 7, Cotillard made her on-screen debut in the short film Le monde des tout-petits, directed by Claude Cailloux and broadcast by the French TV channel TF1.

The following year, she appeared in another TV short film for TF1, Lucie, also directed by Cailloux.

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, 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.

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?"), launched by the French Committee for Health Education.

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).

After small appearances and performances in theatre, Cotillard had occasional, minor roles in television series such as Highlander in 1993, where she had her first English-speaking role aged 17.

She graduated in 1994 and then moved to Paris to pursue an acting career.

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.

Cotillard speaks French and English fluently.

She learned English at the age of 11.

She started learning Spanish at school but then abandoned it.

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).

Also in 1996, she had her first leading role in the television film Chloé, directed by Dennis Berry and opposite Anna Karina, with Cotillard starring as a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution.

Her breakthrough came in the successful French film Taxi (1998), which earned her a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress.

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.

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.

In 1998, she appeared in Gérard Pirès' action comedy Taxi, playing Lilly Bertineau, the girlfriend of delivery boy Daniel, played by Samy Naceri.

The film was a box office hit in France with over 6 millions tickets sold, and Cotillard was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress.

She has served as a spokeswoman for Greenpeace since 2001.

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).

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 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 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).

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 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 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).

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.

Cotillard started acting as a child in theatre and in TV films.