World Stars: Audrey Tautou

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Audrey Tautou Biography

Date of Birth
9 August 1976, Beaumont, Puy-de-Dôme, France
Height
5' 3" (1.60 m)
Mini Biography
Audrey Justine Tautou (; born 1976 or 1978) is a French film actress, best known for playing the title character in the award-winning 2001 film Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Sophie Neveu in the 2006 thriller The Da Vinci Code, Irène in Priceless (2006) and Coco Chanel in Coco avant Chanel. She won the César Award for Most Promising Actress in Venus Beauty Institute (1999).
Early life
Tautou was born in Beaumont, in the Puy-de-Dôme département of Auvergne, and was raised in Montluçon in nearby Allier. Her father is an oral surgeon and her mother is a teacher. Tautou showed an interest in acting at an early age and started her acting lessons at the Cours Florent.
Career
In 1998, Tautou participated in a Star Search-like competition sponsored by Canal+ called "Jeunes Premiers" (The Young Debut) and won Best Young Actress at the 9th Béziers Festival of Young Actors. Tonie Marshall gave her a role in the César-winning Venus Beauty Institute (1999, aka Vénus beauté (institut)). In 2000, she won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti as her country's most promising young film actress.
In 2001, Tautou rose to international fame for her performance as the eccentric lead in the romantic comedy Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie). In June 2004, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
In 2005, Tautou worked in her first full Hollywood production, opposite Tom Hanks, in the film version of Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard and released in May 2006. She acted alongside Gad Elmaleh in Pierre Salvadori's Hors de prix (Priceless), released 13 December 2006. The film has been compared to Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Tautou starred with Guillaume Canet in Claude Berri's Ensemble, c'est tout in 2007, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Anna Gavalda.
Tautou played the lead role in the biopic of fashion designer Coco Chanel, titled Coco avant Chanel, and directed by Anne Fontaine. Filming began in Paris in September 2008, and released in France on 22 April 2009. The script is partially based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s book “L’Irrégulière” (”The Non-Conformist”). As part of promoting the film, Tautou was named as the next spokesmodel for Chanel No. 5, replacing Nicole Kidman. She was directed in the advertisement by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with whom she worked on Amélie and A Very Long Engagement. The advertisement was released in 2009 to coincide with the film's release.
She appeared in the video of "I Love Your Smile", a song by British singer-songwriter Charlie Winston.
Personal life
She has studied at the Institut Catholique de Paris. She was brought up attending church, though she has now stated that she is "not officially" a Catholic.
Tautou says she still considers France her base, and plans to pursue a career predominantly there rather than crossing over to the United States. As she told Stevie Wong of The Straits Times:
After the premiere of the film Amélie she travelled to the jungles of Indonesia to help with the preservation of a monkey sanctuary.
In August 2011, the actress states in 'The Telegraph' that she intends to quit acting very soon, so she can dedicate herself to other activities.
Source
The Mini Biography is from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Tautou. IMDb is not affiliated with, and neither endorses, nor is endorsed by Wikipedia or any of the authors who contributed to this article. The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional or other terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details. This webpage may use the Freebase schema, licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/.
Trivia
She nearly never got the chance to play the wonderful Amélie Poulain, as director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was considering British actress Emily Watson for the role of Amélie.
Was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in June 2004. Is now a member.
She speaks excellent English.
Ranked #29 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World" (2002).
Grew up in Montlucon in central France.
Although invited, she did not plan on attending the private screening of Amélie (2001) organized and attended by President Jacques Chirac. She had a previous engagement with her brother (he was sworn in as a policeman that day). Director Jeunet told the French president that she was in Portugal. When she finally showed up, Jacques Chirac told her he thought she was in Portugal; she simply answered "you'll have to check your sources".
When Emily Watson dropped out of Amélie (2001), director Jean-Pierre Jeunet cast Tautou after seeing her on a billboard of the movie Venus Beauty Institute (1999) in Paris near his home in Bastille.
After Amélie (2001), she and her sister went on a roadtrip in Indonesia where no one recognized her.
Favourite authors are Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde and Paul Auster.
Favourite poets are Charles Baudelaire and Tristan Tzara.
Favourite music composers are Ravel, Mozart and Frédéric Chopin.
Once was told by a medium that she was going to be mother of twins at age 30.
Studied at the Cours Florent in Paris.
Also studied literature at university.
Her father is a dental surgeon and her mother is a teacher.
She said that Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Juliette Lewis, Jodie Foster and Julianne Moore are her idols.
The band Brand New has song named after her, titled "Tautou", featured on their album "Deja Entendu".
French citizen.
Loves painting. Her favorite painters are Turner, Manet, Schiele, Ingres and Delacroix.
Favourite movies are Barry Lyndon (1975) and Breathless (1960).
Grew up in Montluçon in central France.
Is the eldest of four children. She has a brother and two sisters.
She takes pictures of her interviewers and puts them in scrapbook.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#62). [2007].
Boyfriend is rock singer Mathieu Chedid, also known as "M".
Her parents named her after Audrey Hepburn.
Was ranked the 2nd most stylish woman of 2009 by Vogue UK.
Is the face of Chanel n°5.
Personal Quotes
I wouldn't mind being in an American film for a laugh, but I certainly don't want to be in Thingy Blah Blah 3, if you know what I mean.
I show through my movies that I can do something else. But I always play strong-minded characters. I think it's maybe because I'm like that. I love being by myself.
I'm a tomb when it comes to my personal life. I never give even a mote of dust of that away."
Hollywood doesn't need me. After 'Amélie,' I didn't get any offers that interested me. I have very eclectic tastes, but it's important for me that a movie be sensitive, clever and subtle.
Everyone thinks I have an ethnic origin, and could be from North Africa or parts of Asia, or Italy and Spain. But, as far as I know, I'm 100-percent French.
I believe in God, but I am not sure to trust Him so much.
I figured that maybe it would be interesting to try a blockbuster, but I never thought it'd happen to me.
I think it's very difficult for French people to work in Hollywood because it's such a huge industry, and to be able to create some space for yourself is a hard job. Plus, the language doesn't help. You can work almost only as a foreign character. Then there's the French film industry, which is not amazingly well, but is able to finance big productions. We have wonderful directors - they might not be as famous as Steven Spielberg, but they bring me so much pleasure.
I don't know where I'm going to be in three years. Because I have the feeling that the future is so full of possibilities, to stop being an actress, to do something else... for me, the future is just a huge bunch of discoveries.
After each experience, you grow up, you get enriched with something, and you don't know how you're going to be in six months, you don't know what you're going to want, what you're going to need.
I'm not sure I'm quite ready to have someone be a prospector of jobs for me, because I believe there's some kind of destiny involved with meeting people... some things are just meant to happen.
People in France are very intrusive when they recognize you. In New York, they are very polite, with quick words, so it's great.
[on Laetitia Colombani]: I found her very precise. She knew exactly what she wanted. Even though she's very young, she managed to control the whole production. She knew her subject - this strange kind of madness - very well because she had studied it for a very long time.

Audrey Tautou