Mathieu Amalric

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Mathieu Amalric at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival

Mathieu Amalric (born October 25, 1965 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ) is a French film and theater actor, film director and screenwriter. He began an acting career in the early 1990s and became one of the most popular actors in France in the 2000s. So far he has appeared in more than 50 film and television roles, mostly dramas. He became popular with a wide audience primarily through his collaboration with Arnaud Desplechin (including in Ich und meine Liebe , 1996; Life is strange , 2004; Un conte de Noël , 2008) and appearances in international feature film productions ( Butterfly and Diving Bell , 2007; Quantum of Solace , 2008).

Life

Mathieu Amalric grew up in an intellectual environment, far from any religious education. His father, Jacques Amalric, was a correspondent and editor-in-chief for the leading daily newspapers Le Monde and Liberation . His Jewish mother, Nicole Zand, comes from Poland and was a literary critic at Le Monde. His maternal grandparents, who came from the same village as the film director Roman Polański , had fled to France with their daughter when the Second World War broke out , which is why he identified himself strongly with Polański as an adolescent in the late 1980s. The parents separated when he left home. He graduated from the École normal supérieure and studied oriental languages. He came to film through his parents, who had made the acquaintance of the Georgian director Otar Iosseliani in Moscow . Iosseliani, who enjoyed working with amateur actors, entrusted him with the supporting role of Julien in his comedy The Minions of the Moon (1984), which he shot in France, at the age of 18 .

Amalric didn't reappear as an actor until the early 1990s when he got a small role in Arnaud Desplechin's award-winning thriller The Guard (1992). The following year he acted again in Hunting Butterflies (1993), directed by Iosseliani . This was followed by a long-term collaboration with Desplechin, who used Amalric as the main actor in several of his works. He had met him at the film school, where the actor (who wasn't a student) was allowed to cut and edit his first short film at night. Desplechin's Me and My Love (1996) paved his breakthrough as an actor . In the tragicomedy he slipped into the role of a disoriented and reserved student who longs to get out of the longstanding relationship with his girlfriend (played by Emmanuelle Devos ) and begins an affair with the girlfriend of an acquaintance. For the part of Paul Amalric received praise from the critics and at the age of 31 he was awarded the most important French film prize, the César , for best young actor .

After this success he established himself with other leading and supporting roles in French cinema, in dramas as well as in comedies. In love affairs, he often gave awkward characters a face, slipped into the role of a strange or depressive intellectual and became "a kind of French Woody Allen ". He gave this, for example, in Olivier Assayas at the end of August / beginning of September (1998), in which a small group of around 40-year-old intellectuals are looking for their place in life, both privately and professionally. In the same year he appeared in André Téchiné's romantic drama Alice & Martin as the homosexual actor and roommate of Juliette Binoche . Six years later followed the third collaboration with Desplechin, who entrusted him again with the male lead alongside Emmanuelle Devos in the relationship drama Life is Strange . At the same time, the film tells the stories of the two protagonists of former lovers; While the twice divorced mother of an 11-year-old son and art gallery owner Nora is preparing for her third wedding, her ex-lover, the violinist Ismaël, ends up in a mental hospital. Desplechin's film, in other roles with Catherine Deneuve and Maurice Garrel , was in the favor of critics and audiences and received the Louis Delluc Prize in 2005 and seven César nominations. Amalric secured the award for the best leading actor for the first time .

After repeated success, he took on minor roles in international cinema, including that of shady informant Louis in Steven Spielberg's Oscar- nominated drama Munich (2005). The leading role in Nicolas Klotz 's business thriller La question humaine , in which he is supposed to test the mental state of the general director (played by Michael Lonsdale ) of a German petrochemical company as the psychologist Simon Kessler , brought him several prizes. However, Kessler quickly came across lines of connection and parallels between National Socialist crimes and the neoliberal present. Klotz praised his main actor for his " chimerical sensitivity ". “I think he's obsessive, but also very clear, very precise and also allows him to be guided. In this respect he is childlike: he has the confidence to just let himself go. ”Another critical success in 2007 was the lead role in Julian Schnabel's Butterfly and Diving Bell , which the American Johnny Depp should have played. In the drama, a film adaptation of the memoirs of Jean-Dominique Bauby , Amalric starred as the successful editor-in-chief of a French fashion magazine who suffers a stroke. Suffering from locked-in syndrome , he takes refuge in his imagination and memories. His portrait in the highly acclaimed, Oscar-nominated experimental film, which Der Spiegel rated as "movingly tender" and "capable of suffering", once again earned him the most important film awards in France, including in 2008 the second César for best leading actor. In the same year he acted again under Desplechins direction in the family drama Un conte de Noël with Catherine Deneuve and Anne Consigny , while he was seen in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace as an opponent of Daniel Craig , Dominic Greene.

Amalric sees acting as a distraction from his real career, that of a filmmaker. After he was not allowed to attend the IDHEC film school in Paris , he realized his first directorial work on 8mm film with Marre de Café in 1985 and, recommended by a family friend, worked as assistant director for Louis Malle ( Goodbye, Children , 1987 ) and later also for Peter Handke (The Absence , 1993). With Es ist aufegessen (1997) he made his first feature film, for which he also wrote the script. The semi-autobiographical family psychogram is about the adult son of a respected literary critic who returns to his parents' house in Paris to grapple with the past. This was followed, among other things, by the feature films Le stade de Wimbledon (2001), the arte television film Equality (2003) and several short films. Amalric also taught at the La fémis film school . For his feature film Tournée (2010), in which he also appeared as an actor, he received the directing award at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival as well as several César nominations.

Mathieu Amalric was married to the actress Jeanne Balibar . With her he was in front of the camera in Die Wache , Ich und mein Liebe or in late August and early September ; he entrusted her roles in directing It Will Be Eaten and Le stade de Wimbledon . The marriage resulted in two sons. Another son comes from a relationship with a screenwriter.

Filmography

Actor (selection)

Director

  • 1985: Marre de café (short film)
  • 1990: Sans rires (short film)
  • 1993: Les yeux au plafond (short film)
  • 1996: It is eaten up (Mange ta soupe)
  • 2001: Le stade de Wimbledon
  • 2003: Equality ( La chose publique , TV film)
  • 2004: 14.58 euros (short film)
  • 2007: Laissez-les grandir ici! (Short film)
  • 2010: Tour
  • 2010: Joann Sfar (dessins) (documentary short film)
  • 2010: L'illusion comique
  • 2014: The blue room (La chambre bleue)
  • 2017: Barbara

Awards

Actors à l'Écran

  • 1997: nominated for the Prix ​​Michel Simon for Me and My Love

Cannes International Film Festival

  • 2010: Best Director for Tour

César

  • 1997: Best Young Actor for Me and My Love
  • 2005 : Best Actor for Life is Strange
  • 2008 : Best Actor for Butterfly and Diving Bell
  • 2011 : nominated in the categories Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Tour
  • 2014 : nominated in the category Best Actor for Venus in Fur
  • 2015 : nominated together with Stéphanie Cléau in the category Best Adapted Screenplay for The Blue Room

Chlotrudis Award

  • 2006: Nominated for Best Actor for Life is Strange

Copenhagen International Film Festival

  • 2007: Best Actor for La question humaine

Étoile d'Or

  • 2005: Best Actor for Life is Strange
  • 2008: Best actor for butterfly and diving bell

Gijón International Film Festival

  • 2007: Best Actor for La question humaine

Prix ​​Lumières

  • 2005: Best Actor for Life is Strange
  • 2008: Best actor for butterfly and diving bell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g cf. Day, Elizabeth: The Interview: Mathieu . In: The Observer , May 11, 2008, Observer Review Features Pages, p. 8
  2. ↑ a b cf. Mathieu Amalric . In: International Biographical Archive 23/2008 from June 3, 2008
  3. ↑ Biography ( Memento from October 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ a b cf. Matthias Lerf: Be careful, the devil is sitting there . In: SonntagsZeitung , February 3, 2008, p. 43
  5. ↑ a b Today's bad guys are great guys . In: Berliner Zeitung , November 7, 2008, p. 32, interview with Mariam Schaghaghi
  6. ↑ Who will we fall in love with this year at Cannes? . In: Evening Standard , May 10, 2007
  7. ↑ Martyrs of Survival . In: Der Spiegel . No. 13 , 2008, p. 161 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Matthew Campbell: Blinking hell . In: The Sunday Times (London), January 27, 2008, p. 11
  9. ^ Dana Stevens: Mathieu Amalric . In: The New York Times , May 20, 2005, Section E, p. 21
  10. ^ Fabienne Darge: Jeanne Balibar, la belle echappee . In: Le Monde , September 25, 2003, Culture
personal data
SURNAME Amalric, Mathieu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French director and actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuilly-sur-Seine , France