Marion Cotillard

At 49 years old, Marion Cotillard has this physical status:

After small appearances and performances in theatre, Cotillard had occasional, minor roles in television series such as Highlander—where she had her first English-speaking role aged 17. 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 1996). Also in 1996, Cotillard had her first leading role in the television film Chloé, directed by Dennis Berry, with Cotillard starring as a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution, opposite Anna Karina. 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 hit in France and Cotillard was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress. She reprised the role in Taxi 2 (2000) and Taxi 3 (2003).

Cotillard ventured into science fiction with Alexandre Aja's post-apocalyptic romantic drama, Furia, released in 1999, a year in which she also starred in the Swiss war drama War in the Highlands (La Guerre dans le Haut Pays), for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Autrans Film Festival in 1999. In 2001, she appeared in Pierre Grimblat's film Lisa, playing the title role and younger version of Jeanne Moreau's character, alongside Benoît Magimel and Sagamore Stévenin. She also starred in Gilles Paquet-Brenner's film Pretty Things (Les Jolies Choses), adapted from the work of feminist writer Virginie Despentes, portraying twins of completely opposite characters, Lucie and Marie; for that role, she was again nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress. In 2002, Cotillard starred in Guillaume Nicloux's thriller A Private Affair (Une Affaire Privée), in which she portrayed the mysterious Clarisse.

Cotillard started the transition into Hollywood when she obtained a supporting role in Tim Burton's 2003 film Big Fish playing Joséphine, the French wife of Billy Crudup's character, William Bloom. The production, her first English-language film, allowed her to work with well-established actors such as Helena Bonham Carter, Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Jessica Lange and Allison Lohman. Big Fish was a critical and commercial success. She also starred in the 2003 French romantic comedy film Love Me If You Dare (Jeux d'enfants), as Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants. The film was directed by Yann Samuel and was a box office hit in France with over 1 million tickets sold.

In 2004, she won the Chopard Trophy of Female Revelation at the Cannes Film Festival, and appeared in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles), as the vengeful Tina Lombardi, for which she won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the mystery thriller Innocence, as Mademoiselle Éva; both films were acclaimed by critics. In 2005, Cotillard starred in six films: Steve Suissa's Cavalcade, Abel Ferrara's Mary, Richard Berry's The Black Box (La Boîte Noire); Love Is in the Air (Ma vie en l'air), Burnt Out (Sauf le respect que je vous dois), and Stéphan Guérin-Tillié's Edy.

In May 2005, Cotillard portrayed Joan of Arc for the first time in the Orléans Symphonic Orchestra's production of Arthur Honegger's oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake at the Palais des Sports d'Orléans, in Orléans, France. She reprised the role several times when performing the oratorio in different countries in the following years.

In 2006, the actress took on significant roles in four feature films, including Ridley Scott's romantic dramedy A Good Year, in which she portrayed Fanny Chenal, a French café owner in a small Provençal town, opposite Russell Crowe as a Londoner who inherits a local property. She played Nadine in the Belgian comedy Dikkenek, alongside Mélanie Laurent, and the role of Nicole in Fair Play. She also played Léna in the satirical coming-of-age film Toi et moi, directed by Julie Lopes-Curval, for which she learned how to play the cello for her role.

Cotillard 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. The film was dubbed "the most awaited film of 2007" in France, where some critics said that Cotillard had reincarnated Édith Piaf to sing one last time on stage. At the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film premiered, Cotillard was given a 15-minute standing ovation. Hollywood talent agent, Hylda Queally, signed Cotillard shortly after its premiere at the festival. La Vie en Rose was a box office hit in France, gathering over 5 million admissions, and made US$86 million worldwide on a US$25 million budget.

Cotillard is the first actress to win a Golden Globe for a non-English 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 non-English language performance. On 10 February 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. At the Academy Awards, she won Best Actress, becoming the first woman and second person (after Adrien Brody, The Pianist) to win both a César and an Oscar for the same performance. Cotillard is the second French actress to win this award and the third overall to win an Academy Award after Simone Signoret in 1960 and Juliette Binoche in 1997. She is the first Best Actress winner for a non-English language performance since Sophia Loren in 1961. She is also the first and (as of 2022) only winner of an Academy Award for a French-language performance. On 24 June 2008, Cotillard was one of 105 individuals invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 2009, Cotillard starred alongside Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in the role of Billie Frechette in Michael Mann's Public Enemies, which was released in the United States on 1 July 2009. Later that year, she starred in the film adaptation of the musical Nine, directed by Rob Marshall, playing Luisa Contini, the wife of Guido, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. In the film, Cotillard performed two musical numbers: "My Husband Makes Movies" and "Take It All". Time magazine ranked Cotillard's performance in Nine as the fifth best female performance of 2009, 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 – her second prize from the festival – and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her performance in Nine. Cotillard appeared on the cover of the November 2009 issue of Vogue with her Nine co-stars, and on the July 2010 cover by herself.

On 27 February 2010, Cotillard was the Honorary President of the 35th César Awards ceremony. In the same year, she played Mal Cobb, a projection of Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Dom Cobb's deceased wife in Christopher Nolan's film Inception, also starring Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine and Elliot Page, which released on 16 July 2010. Nolan described Mal as "the essence of the femme fatale", and DiCaprio praised Cotillard's performance saying that "she can be strong and vulnerable and hopeful and heartbreaking all in the same moment, which was perfect for all the contradictions of her character". Cotillard and Leonardo DiCaprio ranked No. 8 on Forbes's list of "Hollywood's Top Earning On-Screen Couples" for Inception, which made US$825 million at the worldwide box-office. She also starred in Guillaume Canet's drama Little White Lies (Les petits mouchoirs), playing the environmentalist Marie, alongside Jean Dujardin and François Cluzet.

In 2011, Cotillard starred in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris alongside Rachel McAdams, Owen Wilson and Kathy Bates, as Adriana, a fictionalized mistress of Pablo Picasso with whom Wilson's character, Gil, falls in love. The film grossed US$151 million worldwide on a US$17 million budget. She appeared with Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh's thriller film Contagion (2011). She also ranked on the top of Le Figaro's 2011 list of the highest-paid French actors in 2010, the first time in nine years that a female had topped the list, and was tied with Kate Winslet as the highest-paid foreign actress in Hollywood.

In 2012, Cotillard was ranked ninth on the list of the highest-paid French actresses in 2011, and starred in Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight Rises, playing Miranda Tate, a board member at Wayne Enterprises. The film reunited Cotillard with her Inception co-stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy, and Public Enemies collaborator Christian Bale.

In Jacques Audiard's drama Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os), alongside Matthias Schoenaerts, Cotillard portrayed the orca trainer Stéphanie, who loses her legs after an accident at work and begins a strange relationship with Schoenaerts' character. The film premiered in the main competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in May 2012 and received a ten-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening. Cotillard garnered rave reviews for her performance, and Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety praising her, describing the film as "simply astonishing" and stating that "Marion has created a character of nobility and candour, seamlessly melding herself into a world we could not have known without her. Her performance is as unexpected and as unsentimental and raw as the film itself". She received a fifth César Award nomination, a fourth Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, a third Golden Globe nomination (her first nomination for Best Actress – Drama), a second Critics' Choice Award nomination and a second Lumières Award nomination. Cotillard also received several honors and career tributes in 2012, at the Telluride Film Festival, Hollywood Film Festival, AFI Fest, Gotham Awards and Harper's Bazaar Awards.

In 2013, Cotillard was named Woman of the Year by Hasty Pudding Theatricals, a student society at Harvard, and was also ranked the 2nd highest paid actress in France in 2012, and the 7th highest paid actor overall. In May 2013, she appeared in the controversial music video "The Next Day" by David Bowie, alongside Gary Oldman, her co-star in The Dark Knight Rises. She had her first leading role in an American movie in James Gray's The Immigrant, starring as the Polish immigrant Ewa Cybulska, who wants to experience the American dream in 1920s New York, starring opposite Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner. James Gray wrote the movie especially for Cotillard after meeting her at a French restaurant with her boyfriend. Gray stated that Cotillard is the best actor he's ever worked with. Cotillard had to learn 20 pages of Polish dialogue for her role. Her performance was widely acclaimed, and she was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Award, the National Society of Film Critics Award, the Toronto Film Critics Association Award and was nominated for a Spirit Award for Best Actress in 2015. She starred in Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties, with Clive Owen, Billy Crudup and her Rust and Bone co-star Matthias Schoenaerts, and had a cameo in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, acting opposite Jim Carrey as a Canadian anchor in the battle scene between rival news teams. In December 2013, Cotillard was a member of the jury of the 13th Marrakech Film Festival that was presided by Martin Scorsese.

In 2014, she starred in Dardenne brothers' Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit), portraying Sandra, a Belgian factory worker who has just one weekend to convince her co-workers to give up their bonuses so that she can keep her job. The film premiered in the main competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and earned a 15-minute standing ovation, with Cotillard's performance being praised as "a career-high performance" and named "the best performance of the festival", and Cotillard was widely tipped to win the festival's best actress prize for her performance, which ended up going to Julianne Moore for Maps to the Stars. Cotillard received several critics' awards, a European Film Award, was nominated for a second Academy Award and for a sixth César Award. Her performances in both The Immigrant and Two Days, One Night shared the fourth spot of Time's list of Best Movie Performances of 2014. In November 2014, Cotillard participated on Comedy Central's All-Star Non-Denominational Christmas Special in a duet with Nathan Fielder singing Elvis Presley's song "Can't Help Falling in Love".

In 2015, Cotillard took on the role of Lady Macbeth in a film adaption of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, directed by Justin Kurzel and starring Michael Fassbender in the title role. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and Cotillard's performance was again the subject of praise from critics, particularly for her rendition of the "Out, Damned Spot" monologue. Variety's critic, Guy Lodge remarked: "Her deathless sleepwalking scene, staged in minimalist fashion under a gauze of snowflakes in a bare chapel, is played with tender, desolate exhaustion; it deserves to be viewed as near-definitive." Cotillard was nominated for the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress for her performance. That same year, Cotillard starred in New York Philharmonic's production of Arthur Honegger's oratorio "Joan of Arc at the Stake", and voiced the roles of The Rose in both the English and the French version of The Little Prince, directed by Mark Osborne; Scarlet Overkill in the French version of Minions; and April in the French-Canadian-Belgian 3D animated film April and the Extraordinary World (Avril et le Monde Truqué), directed by Franck Ekinci and Christian Demares.

In 2016, Cotillard played Gabrielle, a free-spirited woman in a convenience marriage, in Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon (Mal de Pierres), an adaptation of the bestselling Italian novel Mal di Pietre by Milena Agus, which marked her return to French cinema after 2012's Rust and Bone, and earned her a seventh César Award nomination. She also played the role of Catherine, the sister-in-law of a gay playwright (portrayed by Gaspard Ulliel), who returns home to tell his family that he is dying in Xavier Dolan's Canadian-French co-production It's Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du Monde). Both films premiered in the main competition section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, to polarized reactions from critics. It's Only the End of the World was a box office hit in France with over 1 million tickets sold.

Cotillard starred opposite Brad Pitt in Allied (2016), a spy film set in World War II directed by Robert Zemeckis, in which she played Marianne Beausejour, a French Resistance fighter. While critical reviews were mixed, Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine felt that "Pitt and Cotillard give sturdy, coded performances that feel naturalistic, not phony: They understand clearly that their chief mission is to tap the tradition of melodrama, and they take it seriously. Somehow, almost incomprehensibly, it all works. Allied looks old but smells new, and the scent is heady." The film grossed US$120 million worldwide. Cotillard reteamed with Macbeth director Justin Kurzel and co-star Michael Fassbender in the film adaptation of the video game Assassin's Creed, also released in 2016.

On 30 January 2017, Cotillard was honored with a special award for her career at the 22nd Lumières Awards in France. In 2017, she also starred in Guillaume Canet's satire comedy Rock'n Roll, and Arnaud Desplechin's drama Ismael's Ghosts (Les Fantomes d'Ismaël), alongside Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Louis Garrel. The Hollywood Reporter, in its review for the former film, asserted that "Cotillard offers up such a sincere performance that you can't help but laugh".

In the 2018 drama Angel Face (Gueule d'ange) by director Vanessa Fialho, she portrayed Marlene, a woman who suddenly chooses to abandon her daughter for a man she has just met during yet another night of excess. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, Cotillard reprised the role of Marie in Little White Lies 2, sequel to 2010's Little White Lies directed by Guillaume Canet.

In 2020, Cotillard voiced Tutu, the fox in the comedy film Dolittle by Stephen Gaghan. In 2021, she starred as Ann Defrasnoux alongside Adam Driver in the musical film Annette directed by Leos Carax. Her performance in Annette earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

Cotillard produced the documentary Bigger Than Us, directed by Flore Vasseur, which explores the social movement of young people fighting for change in the 21st Century. The documentary was released on 22 September 2021 in France, and it was nominated for a César Award for Best Documentary Film in 2022.

Cotillard voiced German artist Charlotte Salomon in the French version of the animated biographical film Charlotte, directed by Eric Warin and Tahir Rana, which follows the last 10 years of Salomon's life, a Jewish woman who struggled with depression amid World War II and the Holocaust while exiled in the South of France. Cotillard was also an executive producer on the film that made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021. In October 2021, Cotillard played Kim Randall in La Vengeance au Triple Galop, a comedy TV film for France's Canal Plus directed by Alex Lutz and Arthur Sanigou.

In April 2021, it was announced that Cotillard would make her third collaboration with director Arnaud Desplechin in the film Brother and Sister (Frère et Sœur), which follows two siblings, Alice and Louis, played by Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud, who are forced to reunite after the death of their parents following two decades of shared silence. The film premiered in the main competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in May 2022.

During the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Cotillard launched alongside filmmaker Cyril Dion and producer Magali Payen her new production company, Newtopia. The company's central aim is to create content around issues such as environmentalism, science, society, health, geopolitics, feminism and gender "that imagine a better future for the world based on ecologically sustainable and socially fair practices".

Cotillard voiced Coco Chanel in Rencontre(s), a 15-minute immersive virtual reality project directed by Mathias Chelebourg, which premiered at the 79th Venice Film Festival in September 2022.

In late 2021, she was cast in the Apple TV+ anthology series Extrapolations. She also voiced Louise de Savoy in The Inventor, a stop-motion animated film about the life of Leonardo da Vinci, written and directed by Jim Capobianco. Cotillard will play Solange D’Ayen, the fashion director of French Vogue in the World War II-set drama film Lee, directed by Ellen Kuras and starring Kate Winslet as photographer Lee Miller.

Music career

Cotillard sings, plays guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and tambourine. She co-wrote and performed the song "La Fille De Joie" for her 2001 film Pretty Things (Les Jolies Choses), 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. 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. 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. In the same year, she appeared in the video "More Than Meets the Eyes" from Yodelice.

Cotillard recorded the song "The Eyes of Mars" with 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, 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".

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