Léa Seydoux

Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne

1 July 1985

A French actress. Seydoux says that as a child she wanted to become an opera singer, studying music at the Conservatoire de Paris, but eventually her shyness compelled her to drop the idea. It wasn't until the age of eighteen that she decided to become an actress. One of her friends was an actor, and Seydoux has said: "I found his life wonderful, I thought, "Oh my god, you can travel, you're free, you can do what you want, you're the boss." She took acting classes at French drama school Les Enfants Terribles, and in 2007 she took further training at New York's Actors Studio with Corinne Blue.

Seydoux first came to attention in 2008, when she appeared in Christophe Honoré's "The Beautiful Person", a role that earned her the 2009 Chopard Award from the Cannes Film Festival for "Best Upcoming Actress" and a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress. In 2009 she had a major part in Jessica Hausner's "Lourdes", and a small role in her first Hollywood film, Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds".

In 2013, Seydoux was nominated for Best Actress at the 38th César Awards for her role as Sidonie Laborde in Benoît Jacquot's "Farewell, My Queen". Later that year at Cannes, "Blue Is the Warmest Colour" won the Palme d'Or and the jury, headed by Steven Spielberg, took the unusual move of awarding the prize not just to the director Abdellatif Kechiche, but also to the film's two stars, Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos.

As actress

• Mes copines (2006)
• La Consolation (2007)
• The Last Mistress (2007)
• 13 French Street (2007)
• On War (2008)
• Les Vacances de Clémence (2008)
• Des poupées et des anges (2008)
• The Beautiful Person (2008)
• Lourdes (2009)
• Des illusions (2009)
• Inglourious Basterds (2009)
• Plein sud (2009)
• Robin Hood (2010)
• Petit tailleur (2010)
• Sans laisser de traces (2010)
• Belle Épine (2010)
• Roses à crédit (2010)
• Mysteries of Lisbon (2010)
• Midnight in Paris (2011)
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
• Time Doesn't Stand Still (2011)
• Le roman de ma femme (2011)
• Farewell, My Queen (2012)
• Sister (2012)
• Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)
• Grand Central (2013)
• Prada: Candy (2013)
• Beauty and the Beast (2014)
• The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
• Saint Laurent (2014)
• Diary of a Chambermaid (2015)
• The Lobster (2015)
• Spectre (2015)
• It's Only the End of the World (2016)

Quotations

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I'm not as beautiful as a model.

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In America it's good to show people you are fine, you're healthy, you're sporty, you're happy to do things, to live. And in France it's more like you don't have to show you have success.

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Even in between takes, you emerge yourself. So you don't have a life for six months.

* * *

I was putting forward too much of myself when I was singing.

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In America, you don't have to be weak, you have to be strong.

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