Name: Marion Cotillard Date of Birth: 30 September 1975 Place of birth: Paris, France Special moves: Acting, singing Films include: Jeux d’enfants, La Vie En Rose, Inception, Little White Lies

What you probably already know:

Marion Cotillard actually has quite an enviable reputation in the English-speaking world – which is to say that many if not most people have heard of her, an achievement in itself for an actress who has taken very few English roles. She is perhaps best known for her extraordinary performance as legendary chanteuse Edith Piaf in multi-award winning biopic La Vie En Rose – as well as picking up a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and a César for her role, Cotillard made history when she won the first Academy Award ever to be awarded for a performance in French.

Cotillard is also very well known for her supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s epic thriller Inception, in which she played the principal antagonist – the dead wife of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Cobb. Cotillard gained plaudits and major exposure for the snarling performance which saw her deliver every line within the confines of Cobb’s tortured psyche, arguably making up for her decision to appear in the utterly mental Nine. Having said that, she was probably the best thing about it; she generally is.

What you might not know:

Cotillard is scheduled to make three appearances on our screens this year; she stars in Little White Lies, which is out now, and will shortly be seen trying to ignore Carla Bruni’s dreadful acting in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. She is also due to star alongside Matt Damon, Jude Law and fellow Oscar winner Kate Winslet in Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, a distinctly mad-sounding thriller about an international team of doctors battling to stop the outbreak of a deadly disease. AND she’s turning up in The Dark Knight Rises! Cotillard has rarely taken roles in such blockbusterish productions; maybe Inception loosened her up a bit.

When she’s not busy BLOWING EVERYONE’S MINDS with her tasty acting, Marion Cotillard lives in Paris with her partner, César-winning director Guillaume Canet (Tell No One, Little White Lies). The couple, who are expecting a baby, reportedly have little interest in maintaining a high-profile relationship and are often to be seen pottering incognito around the city’s coffee shops. Cotillard is also an environmental activist, using her public profile to support Greenpeace and narrating mad eco-documentary OceanWorld 3D. Good for her.

Marion Cotillard quote:

(on the experience of filming La Vie En Rose): “I’ll never approach a part in the same way again. Piaf taught me so much. In terms of my work, I think I’ll enjoy it even more than before, because now I know that characters truly exist in their own right. I’ll have a way to bring them even more intensely to life.”

What to say at a dinner party:

In many ways Cotillard’s work on La Vie En Rose redefined the concept of the biopic in toto; her intensely studied and technically perfect performance set the bar almost impossibly high for future films in the same vein, particularly those with a musical bent.”

What not to say at a dinner party:

“Yeah, I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code!”

Final thought:

We’re not quite sure what her role of ‘Muse’ entails in Midnight In Paris – could she be what the ailing director needs to save his latest film from mediocrity? Fingers crossed!

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