Cotillard, Marion

▪ 2009

born Sept. 30, 1975, Paris, France

      In 2008 French actress Marion Cotillard won an armload of best actress awards for her portrayal of legendary French chanteuse Edith Piaf in La Môme (2007; U.S. title, La Vie en Rose). Cotillard, who stunningly captured the gauche grace of the diminutive singer, was widely and effusively praised for her mercurial, often tortured, performance. It came as no surprise, then, when she took home an Academy Award and a César, France's most esteemed film award, as well as a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and other honours. Although Cotillard did not sing on camera, her performance captured Piaf in a way rarely seen onscreen, and, after years of fame in France, Cotillard finally became a household name around the world.

      Cotillard grew up in Orleans in an artistic household—her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, was an actor and director, and her mother, Niseema Theillaud, was an actress. Her parents performed together in a theatre troupe, and Cotillard got her first taste of acting when she appeared onstage in a play written by her father. She did not pursue a professional acting career, however, until the age of 16, when she moved to Paris.

      In her first prominent film role, in the Luc Besson-penned Taxi (1998), she played the girlfriend of a pizza delivery man turned vigilante taxi driver. The movie spawned two sequels over the next five years, and the Taxi franchise became one of France's most successful. In 2005 she earned the César Award for best supporting actress for her performance as a vengeful prostitute in Un Long Dimanche de fiançailles (2004; A Very Long Engagement). While that film and the Taxi series cemented Cotillard's star status in her own country, she became known to American audiences with her turn in American director Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003), in which she had a small but memorable role. Her next foray into Hollywood was less successful; she appeared in the poorly received A Good Year (2006), which starred Australia's Russell Crowe. The following year she was chosen out of hundreds of hopefuls for the lead in La Môme. By mid-2008 Cotillard had returned to work on her next project, the Hollywood film Public Enemies with Johnny Depp, and was preparing to appear in the screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Nine.

      In addition to her film work, Cotillard used her high public profile to bring attention to the aims of Greenpeace, working for the organization as a spokesperson and offering her apartment as a testing ground for product safety. She also contributed to Dessins pour le climat, a book of drawings published by Greenpeace in 2005 to raise funds for the environmental group.

Melissa Albert

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