Marion Cotillard

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

 

  1. Audrey Tautou, The Da Vinci Code, 2005.
  2. Elsa Zylberstein, Le concile de pierre (The Stone Council), France-Italy-Germany, 2006.     A return to her Une affaire privee director Guillaume Nicloux had been part of a four-movie marathon before shooting her international breakthrough: La môme. She settled for three.
  3. Cécile De France, L’instinct de mort, France-Canada-Italy, 2008.    No shortage of French actresses for Jeanne Schneider: lover of gangster Jacques Mesrine,something of a 1959-1979 French Dillinger: bank robber, kidnapper, killer (39 victims,at least), who preferred to see himself, bien sur, as an anarchist.
  4. Kate Winslet, The Reader, 2008.      Kate was always director Stephen Daldry’s first choice for Hanna Schmitz.However, she was delayed on Revolutionary Road, and Nicole Kidman was still making Australia and then proved pregnant. Daldry then considered Kidman pal Naomi Watts, Juliette Binoche (The English Patient Oscar-winner) and thenew French rave, already well used to hours of old-age make-up in her Oscar-winning La Môme, 2007.     Finally, Kate was free and this time she got the 2008 Oscar.
  5. Judi Dench, Nine, 2009.  
  6. Nicole Kidman, Nine, 2009
  7. Cate Blanchett, Robin Hood, 2009.      When Sienna Miller quit as the maid, er widow Marion (sic), director Ridley Scott and his (bulky) Robin, Russell Crowe, rushed to their partner in A Good Year, 2006.
  8. Noomi Rapace, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shows, 2010.        Director Guy Ritchiesaw Spanish Penelope Cruz and all the usual French girlsfor Sim – Juliette Binoche, Cécile de France, Eva Green, Virginie Ledoyen, Sophie Marceau, Audrey Tautou. And signed a Swede… the star of theMillennium trilogy.
  9. Uma Thurman, Bel Ami, 2011.       Her schedule ruled out being Madeleine Forestier opposite  with Robert Pattinson in the latest version Guy de Maupassant’s 1885 novel of social ambition. 
  10. Juliette Binoche, Cosmopolis, 2011.      Lost Pattinson again – pregnant with  her and Guillaume Canet’s son, Marcel. Director David Croneneberg next looked at Keira Knightley and Noomi Rapace. They were busy and one French Oscar-winner succeeded another. 

  11. Sandra Bullock, Gravity, 2012.        Natalie Portman was #1 choice after Angelina Jolie wanted $20m to be Ryan, lone survivor of a space mission to repair the Hubble telescope – trying to to return to Earth and her daughter. But Natalie was pregnant. Enter: Marion. Pregnant, too. Rebecca Hall, Salma Hayek, Scarlett Johannsson, Blake Lively, Sienna Miller, Carey Mulligan, Natalie Portman, Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Wilde all fought for the role… Because the female astronaut is alone on-screen for most of the movie. (Sorry about that, George Clooney).
  12. Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables, 2012.        The genuinely French La Cotillard was among the potential Fantines. But if everyone else had UK accents… Also seen: Amy Adams, Jessica Biel, Emily Blunt, Rebecca Hall, Kate Winslet – until Hathaway’s audition had everyone in tears…
  13. Bérénice Bejo, Le passé, France-Italy-Iran, 2012.         Being about the busist actress on the planet that year, Cotillard lost Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s film in favour of The Immigrant, by her US pal, James Gray. Both films unfurled at the 2013 Cannes festival where the best actress award went to… Bejo!   
  14. Lea Seydoux, Le journal d’une femme de chambre, France, 2014.    Takes a brave realisateur to re-make a film previously  made by Jean Renoir and by Luis Buñuel. Benoit Jacquot’s take on the Octave Mirbeau book had a sudden change of Celestine, the scheming chambermaid,  when the new queen-bee of French cinema,  Cotillard, fell out – needing a break after her Cannes entry, Deux jours, une nuit and  milady Macbeth, no less!   Her hottest rival, Seydoux, filled in. Renoir chose Paulette Goddard in 1945; Buñuel had a more memorable Jeanne Moreau in 1963. 
  15. Charlotte Gainsbourg, 3 cœurs (Three Hearts), France-Germany-Belgium, 2014.      We’ve been here before. In  the 2010 US mumblecore, Your Sister’s Sister: Jack Duplass stuck between sisters Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt. The Gallic version was Vincent Lindon caught between Cotillard and Léa Seydoux before becoming Benoit Poelvoorde and sisters Chiara Mastroianni  (well, her mum, Catherine Deneuve is their mother) and Charlotte Gainsbourg – who looks so miserable in her movies that I suspect her pay-cheques never arrive.
  16. Adèle Haene, La fille inconnue/The Unknown Girl, Belgium-France, 2015.        Ken Loach, Belgian style, is a pair of brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The gestation of their films takes forever. For their 2016 Cannes festival entry they began work in 2010 on the scenario and its main character. A doctor? A cop? Cotillard or Andre Dussollier? Finally it was Adèle as medic obsessed with the death of an African hooker… Meanwhile, Cotillard had time for their finished script of Deux jours, une nuit/Two Days, One Night, in 2013.
  17. Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl, 2015.         The role? Gerda Wegener, the US-born wife of Danish painter Einar Wegener – one of the first men, in 1930, to surgically become a woman: Lili Elbe. First choice Charlize Theron dropped out in 2008. Gwyneth Paltrow moved in but split for more family time. Uma Thurman entered the mix, then Edith Piaf – Marion Cotillard – in 2010. Rachel Weisz followed in 2011 and, finally, Vikander played Greta for UK director Tom Hooper… opposite Eddie Redmayne as her husband.
  18. Halle Berry, John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, 2018.   Still in need of a  haircut and a real beard, Wick III kicks off  when his his dog is klilled (“It wasn’t just a puppy”) and the Latin title explodes: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Not much room then for a girl th alongside Keanu Reeves.  Shortlisted for Sofia were Cotillard, Jennifer Beals, Penelope Cruz, Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei. Halle had the edge. She’d worked with James Bond… played Catwoman… and won an Oscar! 
  19. Lady Gaga, House of Gucci, 2021.  Ridley Scott’s Succession, Italian Style,  had been on many shelves over the years. In one nearly done deal, Maurizio Gucci and his wife, Patrizia Reggiani, were set for Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie. Other potentials Patrizias (who ordered his murder) were Anne Hathaway, Natalie Portman, Margot Robbie, plus two of Scott’s previous leading ladies: Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz. But Gaga had the winning improvisation when making the sign of the cross, saying: “Father, Son and  House of  Gucci.

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  19