Marion Cotillard

Name: Marion Cotillard
Born: 28 September 1975 (Age: 35)
Where: Paris, France
Height: 5' 6"
Awards: Won 1 Oscar, 1 BAFTA and 1 Golden Globe.

The cinematic artistry of the French has been held in the highest regard since the earliest days of film. Clearly that nation has produced some of the greatest directors and actors ever seen. Yet it's not often that French artists manage or care to cross over, to achieve or even seek Hollywood success. This becomes very apparent when you consider the great French actresses of recent times. Catherine Deneuve made a fairly pointless appearance alongside Burt Reynolds in The Hustle, Isabelle Adjani in Walter Hill's The Driver, Isabelle Huppert in The Bedroom Window.  Irene Jacob (US Marshals), Emmanuelle Beart  (Mission: Impossible), Juliette Binoche (Bee Season, Dan In Real Life) and Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code) all had brief flings with the US industry. Nathalie Baye hardly gave it a passing glance. It seemed that Hollywood simply didn't generate enough interesting material to hold the attention of the Gallic sisterhood.

Perhaps the same will happen with France's latest thespian sensation - Marion Cotillard. Then again, perhaps not. After all, Cotillard's performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose not only won her an Oscar, it was also quite rightly described as one of the single greatest performances in the history of cinema. She was evidently so intense, so passionate, so powerful, so resourceful and funny that she could turn her hand to any number of roles and just as evidently would be offered them. Where Deneuve and the others failed or did not even try to make their mark on the world stage, Cotillard would press forward with Michael Mann's Public Enemies and Christopher Nolan's Inception. The industry's finest were keen to work with her, not as some exotic eye candy, but as perhaps the most impressive screen actress in the world.

She was born in Paris on the 30th of September, 1975. Two years later she'd have brothers, identical twins Guillaume and Quentin. Her father was Jean-Claude Cotillard, whose family hailed from a poor working-class background in the village of Plemet in Brittany. For work, his parents would migrate to the Val-de-Marne department of Paris where they'd toil as market gardeners. Born just after the Second World War, Jean-Claude would surprise his earthy folks with his ambitions in the world of performance art. As a young man he'd study mime under Etienne Decroux, a revolutionary actor who'd taught Marcel Marceau and ran a school at Boulogne-Billancourt. Here Cotillard would learn total control of his face and body, mastering dramatic movement, including the moonwalk, which was invented by Decroux.