Marion Cotillard Biography

French actress Marion Cotillard has been a global star ever since she won a 2008 Oscar as best actress for her portrayal of singer Edith Piaf in the movie La Vie En Rose (2007, original title La Môme).

Marion Cotillard grew up in and around Paris in a family of stage actors and began her professional career in her teens. Her breakthrough in France came with the comedy Taxi and its sequels (1998-2003), and she was introduced to American audiences in Tim Burton‘s Big Fish (2003, starring Ewan McGregor). She received rave reviews for her roles in Les Jolies Choses (2001, also called Pretty Things) and A Very Long Engagement (2004, starring Audrey Tautou), but her appearance in the Ridley Scott flop A Good Year (2006, starring Russell Crowe) went largely unnoticed.

Despite a roster of European films and years of steady employment, Cotillard was treated like a new star in 2008, thanks to her stirring performance as the tortured chanteuse Piaf. She played Billie Frechette, the moll of gangster John Dillinger, in the 2009 film Public Enemies (with Johnny Depp as Dillinger). Her other films in France, America and beyond include the Woody Allen romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011), the drama Rust and Bone (2012), the magical drama The Immigrant (2013, with Joaquin Phoenix), It’s Only the End of the World (2016), Allied (2016, starring Brad Pitt) and the Guillaume Canet films Rock ‘n’ Roll (2017) and Nous finirons ensemble (2019). (Cotillard and Canet are also romantic partners).

In 2014, Madame Figaro called Marion Cotillard “the most bankable French actress of the 21st century.”