Marion Cotillard (French: (listen); born 30 September 1975) is a French actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters in both European and Hollywood productions, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, a European Film Award, a Lumières Award and two César Awards. She became a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2010, and was promoted to Officer in 2016. She has served as a spokeswoman for Greenpeace since 2001.
Cotillard had her first English-language role in the TV series Highlander (1993), and made her film debut in The Story of a Boy Who Wanted to Be Kissed (1994). Her breakthrough came in the successful French film Taxi (1998), which earned her a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress. She made the transition into Hollywood in Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003), and won her first César Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in A Very Long Engagement (2004). She had her major English-language role up to that point in A Good Year (2006).
For her portrayal of French singer Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose (2007), Cotillard won her second César Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Lumières Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first and (as of 2023) only actor to win an Academy Award for a French-language performance, and also the second actress to have won this award for a non-English language performance. Her performances in Nine (2009), Rust and Bone (2012), and Annette (2021) earned Cotillard three more Golden Globe nominations. For Two Days, One Night (2014), she received a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, her second nomination for a French-language film. Cotillard is one of only seven actors to receive multiple Academy Award nominations for non-English language performances. She has continued to star in major English-language films such as Public Enemies (2009), Inception (2010), Contagion (2011), Midnight in Paris (2011), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), The Immigrant (2013), Macbeth (2015), and Allied (2016).
Cotillard has played Joan of Arc on stage in several countries between 2005 and 2022 in the oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake. She provided voice acting for the animated films The Little Prince (2015), April and the Extraordinary World (2015), the French version of Minions (2015), and Charlotte (2021). Her other notable French, Belgian and Canadian films include La Belle Verte (1996), Pretty Things (2001), Love Me If You Dare (2003), Dikkenek (2006), Little White Lies (2010), and It's Only the End of the World (2016). Cotillard was also the face of the Lady Dior handbag for nine years. Since 2020, she is the face of Chanel's fragrance Chanel No. 5.
Early life
Cotillard was born on 30 September 1975 in Paris and grew up around Orléans in an artistically inclined household. Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, is an actor, teacher, former mime, and theatre director, of Breton descent. Cotillard's mother, Monique Niseema Theillaud, is an actress and drama teacher She has two younger twin brothers, Quentin and Guillaume. Cotillard's father introduced her to cinema, and as a child she would mimic Louise Brooks and Greta Garbo in her own bedroom. She began acting during her childhood, appearing in one of her father's plays.
At the age of 15, Cotillard entered the Conservatoire d'art dramatique in Orléans. She graduated in 1994 and then moved to Paris to pursue an acting career.
