Cécile De France

Biography: life and films

Since making her screen debut in the early 1990s, Cécile de France has matured into a fine actress and is now one of Francophone cinema's most high profile stars. Born in Namur, Belgium on 17th July 1975, she discovered her passion for the theatre whilst at school and began taking acting lessons from the age of 15. After attending the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre in Lyon, she made her stage debut in the early 1990s and, over the next decade, appeared in several theatrical productions, including Georges Feydeau's Dormez je le veux (1996), Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1996) and August Strindberg's Mademoiselle Julie (2001). Her screen career began slowly, with small appearances in short films and made-for-television movies such as Édouard Molinaro's film Nana (2001).

Cécile de France's big break came when Richard Berry gave her her first lead role in his romantic comedy L'Art (délicat) de la séduction (2001). This led Cédric Klapisch to cast her alongside two other rising stars, Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou, in L'Auberge espagnole (2002). This film's success made the actress an overnight star and it won her the César for Most Promising Actress. Unusually, she received another César (in the Best Supporting Actress category) for playing the same role in the film's sequel, Les Poupées russes (2005). She was also awarded the Prix Romy-Schneider in 2005. International celebrity came when she took the lead role in Alexandre Aja's gory thriller Haute tension (2003). On the back of this success, she was given a role in the Hollywood blockbuster Around the World in 80 Days (2004), although this proved to be a major critical and commercial flop.

Over the next decade, the actress was highly sought after by several prominent film directors, including Danièle Thompson, Xavier Giannoli, Claude Miller and Clint Eastwood. For Giannoli, she starred alongside Gérard Depardieu in the acclaimed Quand j'étais chanteur (2006), and she partnered Matt Damon in Eastwood's fantasy thriller Hereafter (2011). In Jean-François Richet's popular Mesrine diptych (2008), she played a notorious gangster's sidekick, and in Stijn Coninx's biopic Soeur Sourire (2009) she turned in a sympathetic portrayal as Jeanine Deckers (the singing nun), one of her frequent lesbian portrayals. Since 2010, Cécile de France has restricted herself to just one or two films a year, although she continues to impress with a wide range of roles in films as diverse as the Dardenne brothers' Le Gamin au vélo (2011), Catherine Corsini's La Belle saison (2015) and Lola Doillon's Le Voyage de Fanny (2016).

Filmography