Sylvie Testud (born 17 January 1971) is a French actress hose film career
est Actress for ''
Fear and Trembling
''Fear and Trembling'' (original Danish title: ''Frygt og Bæven'') is a philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard, published in 1843 under the pseudonym ''Johannes de silentio'' (Latin for ''John of the Silence''). The title is a reference to a ...
'' (2003), and the
European Film Award for Best Actress
The European Film Award for Best Actress is an award given out at the annual European Film Awards to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film industry. The awards are presented by the European Film Academ ...
for ''
Lourdes
Lourdes (, also , ; oc, Lorda ) is a market town situated in the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for the Château ...
'' (2009). Her other film roles include ''
Beyond Silence'' (1996), ''
La Vie en Rose
"La Vie en rose" (; ) is the signature song of popular French singer Édith Piaf, written in 1945, popularized in 1946, and released as a single in 1947. The song became very popular in the US in 1950, when seven versions reached the ''Billboard ...
'' (2007), and ''
French Women
The roles of women in France have changed throughout history. In 1944, French women obtained women's suffrage. As in other Western countries, the role of women underwent many social and legal changes in the 1960s and 1970s. French feminism, whi ...
'' (2014).
Life and career
She grew up in the
La Croix-Rousse
La Croix-Rousse is a hill high in the city of Lyon, France, as well as the name of a neighborhood located on this hill. The neighborhood is divided into les pentes (slopes, belonging to the city's 1st arrondissement) and le plateau (atop the hil ...
quarter of
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
, France. This was an area with many Portuguese, Spanish and Italian immigrants. Her mother immigrated from Italy in the 1960s. Her French father left the family when Sylvie was just two years old.
In 1985, when she was 14, she saw
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Charlotte Lucy Gainsbourg (; born 21 July 1971) is a British-French actress and singer. She is the daughter of English actress Jane Birkin and French musician Serge Gainsbourg. After making her musical debut with her father on the song " Lemo ...
in her role of the complex young girl in ''
L'Effrontée
''An Impudent Girl'' (french: L'Effrontée) is a 1985 French film directed by Claude Miller. It stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, who won the César Award for Most Promising Actress, and Bernadette Lafont, who won the César Award for Best Actress in a ...
'', a film directed by
Claude Miller
Claude Miller (20 February 1942 – 4 April 2012) was a French film director, producer and screenwriter.
Life and career
Claude Miller was born to a Jewish family. A student at Paris' IDHEC film school from 1962 through 1963, Miller had his fi ...
, identified with Gainsbourg, and so took drama classes in Lyon with the actor and director Christian Taponard. In 1989, she moved to Paris and spent three years at the Conservatoire (CNSAD). In the early and mid 1990s, she landed her first small roles in films like ''
L'Histoire du garçon qui voulait qu'on l'embrasse'', directed by
Philippe Harel
Philippe Harel (born 22 December 1956) is a French film director, actor and screenwriter.
Selected filmography
*'' The Story of a Boy Who Wanted to Be Kissed'' (1994)
* ''Une visite'' (1996) (Short)
* ''Les randonneurs'' (1997)
* '' La femme dà ...
, and ''
Love, etc.'', directed by Marion Vernoux. In 1997 she had great success in Germany with
Caroline Link
Caroline Link (born 2 June 1964) is a German film director and screenwriter.
Life and work
Caroline Link is the daughter of Jürgen and Ilse Link. From 1986 to 1990 she studied at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF), and then wo ...
's ''
Jenseits der Stille
''Beyond Silence'' (german: Jenseits der Stille) is a 1996 German film directed by Caroline Link. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 70th Academy Awards.
Plot
The film tells the story of Lara, who ...
'' for which she learned German,
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
, and the clarinet. In 1998 she had her first major role in French cinema playing Béa in
Thomas Vincent's ''
Karnaval
''Karnaval'' is a French film directed by Thomas Vincent and was released 3 March 1999. The film was nominated for a César Award for Best Debut in 2000. At the 49th Berlin International Film Festival in 1999 it won the Alfred Bauer Prize, a p ...
''. In 2000 she starred in
Chantal Akerman
Chantal Anne Akerman (; 6 June 19505 October 2015) was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and Film studies, film professor at the City College of New York. She is best known for films such as ''Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 108 ...
's ''
La Captive
''La Captive'' (''The Captive'') is a 2000 drama film directed by Chantal Akerman and featuring Olivia Bonamy, Sylvie Testud and Stanislas Merhar.
This French-language film is loosely based on Marcel Proust's novel '' La Prisonnière''.
Plot
S ...
'', an adaptation of ''La Prisonière'', the fifth part of
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...
's ''
À la recherche du temps perdu
''In Search of Lost Time'' (french: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French ...
''. In 2001 she won the
César Award for Most Promising Actress
The César Award for Most Promising Actress (french: César du meilleur espoir féminin) is one of the César Awards, presented annually by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma to recognize the outstanding breakthrough performance of a ...
for her portrayal of Christine Papin, one of the
Papin sisters
Papin is a surname, and may refer to:
*Christine Papin (1905–1937), French murderer
*Denis Papin (1647 – c. 1712), French physicist, mathematician and inventor
*Jean-Pierre Papin (born 1963), French former football player
* Joseph Papin (1825â ...
, in ''
Les Blessures assassines
''Murderous Maids'' (french: Les blessures assassines) is a French film directed by Jean-Pierre Denis, released in 2000, which tells the true story of two French maids, Christine and Lea Papin. The screenplay by Jean-Pierre Denis with Michèle Pà ...
'' (English title: ''Murderous Maids''). The story concerned a young servant woman found guilty of the murder, with her sister's help, of her employer's wife and daughter; it had made sensational headlines in France in 1933.
In 2003, she published the autobiographical book ''Il n'y a pas beaucoup d'étoiles ce soir'', with anecdotes of her day-to-day life as an actress. The French edition featured a cover designed by her sister Ghislaine.
One of her most noted performances was as the star of the film ''
Stupeur et tremblements'', adapted from the novel by
Amélie Nothomb
Baroness Fabienne Claire Nothomb (), better known by her pen name Amélie Nothomb (; born 13 August 1967),''État présent de la noblesse belge'', éditions of 1979, 1995 and 2010. Her birth is announced in n° 87, aout 1967, p. 340 of the ''Bull ...
, for which she was awarded a
César and a
Lumières Award for Best Actress
The Lumières Award for Best Actress (french: Prix Lumières de la meilleure actrice) is an annual award presented by the Académie des Lumières since 1996.
Winners and nominees
Winners are listed first with a blue background, followed by the ...
in 2004. She plays a woman struggling with the difference in culture between the Japanese business world and the western, Belgian world, from which she comes. In 2005 or 2006 she returned to her native Lyon (to the Théâtre de la Croix Rousse), where she played the rôle of Edith in Philippe Faure's adaptation of
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig (; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist, and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular write ...
's ''La Pitié dangereuse''. She starred in 2007's two-time
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning film ''
La Vie en rose
"La Vie en rose" (; ) is the signature song of popular French singer Édith Piaf, written in 1945, popularized in 1946, and released as a single in 1947. The song became very popular in the US in 1950, when seven versions reached the ''Billboard ...
'', as Momone, Edith Piaf's best friend. In the 2008 film ''
Sagan'', she portrayed the writer
Françoise Sagan
Françoise Sagan (born Françoise Delphine Quoirez; 21 June 1935 – 24 September 2004) was a French playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Sagan was known for works with strong romantic themes involving wealthy and disillusioned bourgeois chara ...
, earning unanimous praise for her hauntingly accurate portrayal and for which she was again nominated for the
César for best actress.
She was made ''Chevalier'' (Knight) of the
Ordre national du Mérite
The Ordre national du Mérite (; en, National Order of Merit) is a French order of merit with membership awarded by the President of the French Republic, founded on 3 December 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle. The reason for the order's esta ...
in March 2009.
She has a son, Ruben, born on 15 February 2005, and a daughter Esther, born in January 2011.
In 2012, she participated in ''
Rendez-vous en terre inconnue
''Rendez-vous en terre inconnue'' (formerly ''En terre inconnue'') is a French television program broadcast first on France 5 and then on the France 2 network. It was hosted by Frédéric Lopez
Frédéric Lopez (born 4 April 1967 in Pau) is a ...
''.
Filmography
Feature films
Television
Director
Decorations
*
Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2016)
Awards and nominations
Deutscher Filmpreis
César Awards
Lumières Award
Globes de Cristal Awards
European Film Awards
References
External links
*
*
Sylvie Testudat Actricesdefrance.org
CSOJ – Alain BadiouSylvie Testud appears on French television's program ''Ce Soir'' (En direct, channel 3) in conversation with militant philosopher
Alain Badiou
Alain Badiou (; ; born 17 January 1937) is a French philosopher, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École normale supérieure (ENS) and founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucau ...
. The topic of this episode is "Faut-il réinventer l'amour?". Ms. Testud appears 46:18 minutes into the program and is in conversation with Badiou and the program host for about 24 minutes (no commercials, this show is in French).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Testud, Sylvie
1971 births
Living people
French film actresses
French people of Italian descent
Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite
Best Actress César Award winners
Actresses from Lyon
Best Actress German Film Award winners
European Film Award for Best Actress winners
Best Actress Lumières Award winners
20th-century French actresses
21st-century French actresses
French film directors
French women film directors
Most Promising Actress César Award winners
French National Academy of Dramatic Arts alumni
Cours Florent alumni
French women screenwriters
French screenwriters
Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres