Lea Seydoux
Lea Seydoux was born on 1st July, 1985 in Paris, France. She is the daughter of businessman Henri Seydoux and philanthropist Valerie Schlumberger. She has six siblings. Her parents divorced when she was three years old. In childhood she wanted to become an opera singer and joined a music conservatory, but due to her shyness, she droped the idea. She didn't decide to become an actress until the age of 18. She started to take acting classes at French drama school Les Enfants Terribles and in 2007 she joined New York's Actors Studio with Corinne Blue for further training. In 2006, she played her first major role as in Sylvie Ayme’s Mes Copines. She was cast in Nicolas Klotz’s short film La Consolation, which was exhibited in Cannes Film Festival in 2007. In the same year, she also debuted as a model for American Apparel and played roles in the films 13 French Street, Une Vielle Maîtresse and Jalouse, le films. In 2008, she appeared in Christophe Honore’s "The Beautiful Person", and earned the 2009 Chopard Award from the Cannes Film Festival for “Best Upcoming Actress” and a Cesar Awards nomination for Most Promising Actress. In 2009, she played a major part in Jessica Hausner's Lourdes and a small role in her first Hollywood movie, Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. In 2010, she was cast alongside Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, playing Isabella of Angouleme. She also appeared in Louis Garrel's Petit Tailleur and Rebecca Zlotowski’s Belle Epine in 2010, which earned her a second Cesar nomination of Most Promising Actress. She auditioned for the character Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but the it went to actress Rooney Mara. She said: “I got upset, but I don’t think I’d be able to do anything to get that part. It was totally against my nature. I worked hard, but Lisbeth was almost anorexic. I wasn’t like that”. Later she was cast to play Gabrielle in Midnight in Paris, by Woody Allen. In 2011, she appeared in another Hollywood film Mission Impossible (Ghost Protocol), in which she played the killer Sabine Moreau alongside Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner. After that she returned to French cinema and performed in Le Roman de Ma Femme and Roses a Credit in 2011, and Les Adieux a la Reine and L’enfant d’en haut in 2012. In the same year, she played roles in Blue is the Warmest Colour by Abdellatif Kechiche and Grand Central by Rebecca Zlotowski, both were exhibited at the 66th Cannes Film Festival. In 2013, she was nominated for Best Actress at the 38th Cesar Awards for her role as Sidonie Laborde in Benoît Jacquot’s Farewell, My Queen. At Cannes, Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the jury, took the unusual move of awarding the prize to the director Abdellatif Kechiche and two film stars, Adele Exarchopoulos and Seydoux. As a model she participated in the Levi’s television ad "Dangerous Liaison" and also performed in several photo editorials, specialy in US Vogue and W magazine. She advertised for Prada’s 2012 Resort line.