Short Biography

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 Irish-American 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 writer.

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.

Cotillard in 2006In 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 s

Miscellaneous Information

Friends and Family

Guillaume Canet [Friend]

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