Niels Arestrup

Biography: life and films

Niels Arestrup is a Franco-Danish film actor. He was born in Montreuil, France on 8 February 1948. The son of a Danish father and French mother, Arestrup had a modest upbringing in the suburbs of Paris. Shortly after he began his stage career in the early 1970s, he started to appear in films. His first film role was in Samy Pavel's Miss O'Gynie et les hommes fleurs (1974), followed by Alain Resnais's Stavisky (1974). Not one for the tawdry allure of commercial cinema, Arestrup has lent his talents almost exclusively to auteur filmmakers, including established directors (Claude Lelouch, Chantal Akerman, Yves Boisset) and aspiring newcomers (Gabriel Le Bomin, Guillaume Nicloux, Didier Goldschmidt). With his severe Scandinavian looks, Arestrup is well-suited for antipathetic character roles that range from the ambiguous and slightly sinister (La Dérobade) to the downright malevolent (La Rumba). He was also convincing in the part of the tormented artist in Le Pique-nique de Lulu Kreutz (1999). In 2007, he directed himself in his directorial debut feature, Le Candidat. He won the Best Supporting Actor César for his performance in two films directed by Jacques Audiard: De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (2005) and Un prophète (2009). More recently, he has appeared in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011). Whilst pursuing a successful film career, Arestrup has kept up an active presence on the French stage and has made regular appearances on French television. For a time, he also ran a highly regarded school for actors in Paris, the Théâtre-École du Passage.

Filmography