Virginie Fernández (born 15 November 1976), known by her

stage name A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...

Virginie Ledoyen (), is a French actress who has appeared in French, British and American films.

Life and career

Ledoyen was born in

Aubervilliers Aubervilliers () is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, Île-de-France region, northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as ''Albertivillariens'' or ''Albertivillariennes''. Geography Localisatio ...

, the daughter of Olga, a restaurateur, and Bernard Fernández, a merchant who sold cleaning products and knives. Her paternal grandfather was Spanish. She was a print model from the age of two and later took on the stage name "Ledoyen" after the

maiden name When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" is also use ...

of her maternal grandmother, who was a

stage actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lite ...

. Ledoyen's film breakthrough came with '' A Single Girl'' (1995) (stylized ''la fille seule''), for which she was nominated for a

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 ...

. She also received two César Award nominations for ''Les marmottes'' (1993) and '' L'eau froide'' (1994). Outside France, her best-known role is in '' The Beach'' (2000). In the fall of 2000, she signed a contract as a spokesmodel with the cosmetics company

L'Oréal L'Oréal S.A. () is a French personal care company headquartered in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine with a registered office in Paris. It is the world's largest cosmetics company and has developed activities in the field concentrating on hair color, ...

. She was featured alongside two

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

Laetitia Casta Laetitia Marie Laure Casta (; born 11 May 1978)FMD profile
Retrieved 4 December 2009. is a ...

and Noémie Lenoir. She portrayed the character Cosette in the 2000 French

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

miniseries A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format ...

of ''

Les Misérables ''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its origin ...

''. On 29 September 2001, Ledoyen gave birth to her first child, a girl named Lila, with production designer Louis Soubrier, whom she met on the set of ''La fille seule'' in 1995. She was in a short-lived marriage with Iain Rogers, a film director, from 2006 to 2007. From 2007 to 2015, she was in a relationship with actor Arie Elmaleh, whose brother was her co-star in '' The Valet''. Ledoyen and Elmaleh have a son, Isaac, born in July 2010, and a daughter, Amalia, born in April 2014. In 2013 Ledoyen was named as a member of the jury at the

70th Venice International Film Festival The 70th annual Venice International Film Festival took place in Venice, Italy from 28 August to 7 September 2013. American film director William Friedkin was presented with a lifetime achievement award. Italian film director Bernardo Bertoluc ...

Filmography

Other awards

* 1998: Prix Suzanne Bianchetti

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ledoyen, Virginie 1976 births French people of Spanish descent European Film Award for Best Actress winners Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres French film actresses People from Aubervilliers French child actresses 20th-century French actresses 21st-century French actresses Living people