Biography
Marion Cotillard, born in Paris and raised in Orleans, comes from a family of performers. In fact, both of her parents have worked extensively in theater and Marion Cotillard had her start with an appearance in one of her father’s plays.
Marion Cotillard spent her early years perfecting her craft on various local stages, and finally made her professional debut as a teenager in 1993 with an appearance on the Highlander television series. Her first film role followed in 1994’s The Story of a Boy Who Wanted to be Kissed, and she subsequently spent much of the mid-‘90s appearing in French films and television shows.
marion cotillard appears in taxi
Marion Cotillard’s big break came in 1998 when she was cast in Taxi, a French comedy that was an instant smash hit and has since spawned two sequels. Marion Cotillard was even nominated for a Cesar Award (the French equivalent of an Oscar) for Most Promising Actress, and soon found herself in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose her roles. She worked steadily for the next several years, eschewing offers to appear in English-language productions in favor of European endeavors.
marion cotillard in a good year
Following her appearance in the 2003 crossover success Love Me If You Dare, Marion Cotillard finally found herself gaining recognition among North American viewers. It was thanks to her escalating fame that Marion was able to land a role opposite Russell Crowe in 2006’s A Good Year in which the actress plays a sultry Frenchwoman who inevitably winds up seducing Crowe’s uptight character. The movie, though released to mediocre reviews, instantly established Marion Cotillard as a hot new property in Hollywood, and she soon found herself gaining access to increasingly high-profile roles.
marion cotillard in la vie en rose
Rather than take on a thankless role in a brainless blockbuster, Marion Cotillard instead chose to use her newfound infamy by tackling the real-life figure Edith Piaf in the French biopic La Vie en rose. Marion Cotillard’s jaw-dropping and star-making performance earned her a number of kudos and nominations from her peers, and she even found herself winning the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, beating out such notable names as Amy Adams, Ellen Page and Helena Bonham Carter. Her performance also garnered an Academy Award win as well.
marion cotillard named no. 87 in 2008 top 99
Marion Cotillard ranked No. 87 on AskMen.com's Top 99 of 2008 too. She kept a fairly low profile in the months after La Vie en rose’s release, although she did sign on to star in the 2009 film Nine alongside Penelope Cruz and Sophia Loren.
Controversy
On February 29, 2008, the website of French magazine Marianne published quotes of an excerpt of a television interview dating back to February 16, 2007, in which she said:
Cotillard: I have a tendency to often share the point of view of the conspiracy theory.
Paris Dernière: Are you paranoid?
Cotillard: No, no, it's not a paranoid thing — because I think that we are told lies about lots of things.
Paris Dernière: Yeah?
Cotillard: Coluche, 9/11, all that. We can watch on the Internet all the films that, well…about 9/11, about — about the conspiracy theory. It's fascinating. It's even addictive after a while.
Paris Dernière: Let's take 9/11, for example. What did disturb [sic] you more concretely?
Cotillard: You are shown that other towers of the same kind that were hit by planes, that burnt — there is a tower, I think that it's in Spain, that burnt for twenty-four hours.
Paris Dernière: Before collapsing…?
Cotillard: It never collapsed! None of these towers collapsed. And, over there, in a few minutes, the thing collapses. And, then, after that, we'll talk lengthily about it because there was — because the thing was filled with gold, the towers from 9/11. And then it was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, in '73, and to update all that, to modernize all the technology and everything, it was much more expensive to have work done, etc., than destroying them. Did man walk on the moon? I've seen quite a lot of documentaries about it, and I ask myself. But, in any case, I don’t believe everything that I'm told, that's for sure.
She made this statement during a long conversation with host Xavier de Moulins in which La Vie En Rose Oscar-winning make-up artist Didier Lavergne—a close friend of the late Coluche, the controversy over whose death was mentioned just before in the discussion—intervened as well[ and it was edited into an approximately one hour show. At this particular moment, they were visiting the Catacombs, a famous underground ossuary, during a nocturnal walk in various places of Paris for Paris Dernière, a Paris by Night cultural television program.
A few days later Cotillard released the statement: "My statements on that program have been taken completely out context and been crafted into a story that has no merit." She stressed her deep apologies regarding how her statements or their misunderstanding could have hurt any people. Her attorney, Vincent Tolesano, said that "Marion never intended to contest nor question the attacks of September 11, 2001; and regrets the way old remarks have been taken out of context.
