Profile of Oscar Winning Actor Marion Cotillard
From Taxi to La Vie En Rose to Public Enemies
Aug 14, 2008
Oscar winning French actress Marion Cotillard may have been catapulted into the limelight thanks to her virtuoso performance in the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose (La Mome), but her varied acting career had been building steadily to this point. Cotillard's past has seen her take on roles large and small in a whole array of film and television projects.
Taxi
Perhaps the best known, and certainly the most successful, of Cotillard's previous film work was in Luc Besson's Taxi series. She starred in 3 of the Taxi films as Lilly, the sassy, streetwise girlfriend of wise-guy leading man Daniel (Samy Naceri). The first Taxi film, written by Besson, is a riotous, fast-paced comic adventure. It has a spark and humour that puts it in the same bracket as celebrated Besson fare such as Leon and Nikita. Unfortunately, the franchise has been stretched to breaking point, with a soul destroying American re-make starring Queen Latifah, and a host of French sequels of ever-decreasing quality. Cotillard sensibly stood down from Taxi 4, extricating herself from what was once a great series but has sadly become painful in its decline.
Life and Love
Marion Cotillard was born on the 30th September 1975 in Paris, France. Since 2007 she has been romantically linked with French actor Guillaume Canet, whom she first met and worked with on the film Jeux d'enfants (Love Me If You Dare) in 2003. He is a big star in France, but perhaps most familiar to English speaking audiences as the French backpacker Etienne from The Beach.
Marion's parents were both involved in acting and her cousin Laurent Cotillard is also an actor. Marion has two younger brothers, Guillaume and Quentin, who are twins. She is also a well known advocate for Greenpeace.
Marion was introduced to English speaking audiences in Tim Burton's Big Fish, and had a small but stand out role in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film A Very Long Engagement, in which she starred alongside that other darling of Gallic cinema Audrey Tautou. Cotillard won her first Cesar award for A Very Long Engagement.
In 2006 Ridley Scott cast Cotillard in his much overlooked film A Good Year, based on Peter Mayle's novel A Year in Provence, and then in 2007, came the role of a lifetime as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose.
Future Projects – Public Enemies and Nine
Marion Cotillard has two projects on the horizon. The first is the Michael Mann film Public Enemies, which is set in the 1930s and concerns the FBI's attempts to bring criminals such as John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson to justice. Cotillard joins a stellar cast as Billie Frechette, Dillinger's girlfriend. Johnny Depp plays Dillinger and Christian Bale, fresh from The Dark Knight, plays FBI man Melvin Purvis.
Cotillard plays a torch singer in Public Enemies, and will revive that marvellous voice, showcased in La Vie En Rose, again for the musical Nine. Based on the Fellini film 8½ , Nine is about a famous film director, Guido Contini, who attempts to realise the meaning in his life by disseminating his relationships with various women. Director Rob Marshall comes to this project off the back of Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha, and has assembled a distinguished cast. Cotillard joins Daniel Day Lewis (playing Contini) and stars such as Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz.
Further reading: A profile of another equally magnificent French actress Audrey Tautou
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