Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey (born 26 May 1986) is a French, Spanish, actress and model. She is best known for playing Suzanne in '' The Sea Wall'', the

mermaid In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are ...

Syrena in '' Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides'' and Sofi in '' IOrigins''. She also played the Mage in '' King Arthur: Legend of the Sword''. She received the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti in 2009 and the Trophée Chopard Award for Female Revelation of the Year at the

2011 Cannes Film Festival The 64th Cannes Film Festival took place from 11 to 22 May 2011. American actor Robert De Niro served as the president of the jury for the main competition. American filmmaker Terrence Malick won the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize, for t ...

and a nomination at the 2016 David di Donatello in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

Early life

Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey was born in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

to a Spanish father and a French-American mother. She is the eldest among three daughters. Following her parents' divorce when she was 2 years old, she moved to southwestern France when she was 5. She was raised in a small town near

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle'') is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime Departments of France, department. Wi ...

, where she acted in school plays as a hobby, but never saw acting as a possible career path as the countryside where she lived was very different from the movie industry, describing how she thought acting was "not a profession; it was something abstract". Her father later moved to the Dominican Republic, where she spent five summers working as a waitress. At age 17, she moved to Paris by herself to pursue a career in

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, but found herself moving around a lot, without knowing anybody in the area. Shortly after, her father died at age 46. Due to the incident, she describes realizing that life is too short and that her true ambition was acting. After graduation, she went straight to

drama school A drama school, stage school, or theatre school is an undergraduate and/or graduate school or Academic department, department at a college or university, or a free-standing institution (such as the drama section at the Juilliard School) that ...

. She is fluent in Catalan, Spanish, French and Italian. She started learning English for her role in ''Pirates of the Caribbean''.

Career

She made her acting debut in 2007 on French television. In 2008, she made her feature début in the film '' The Sea Wall''. She began modeling in 2010, fronting French Connection's spring/summer and autumn/winter campaigns. Bergès-Frisbey made her English-language debut in 2011 '' Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides'', earning the role of the

Syrena, after a whirlwind of auditions in France, Hollywood, and the UK. She had to learn to speak English for the role. During filming in Hawaii, she was restricted from going out in daylight to keep her skin pale. In 2012, Bergès-Frisbey starred in the Spanish film '' El sexo de los ángeles''. The following year she played the title-role in the coming-of-age French film ''Juliette'' (2013). After that, she appeared in her second English-speaking feature film as Sofi in '' IOrigins'' (2014). She learned to speak Italian for the movie ''

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

'' (2015), which earned her a nomination for the David di Donatello for Best Actress. In 2017, she had a supporting role in '' King Arthur: Legend of the Sword''. In 2020, she received the award for Best Actress at the Taormina Film Fest for her performance in L'Autre. Bergès-Frisbey currently serves as a brand-ambassador for Chanel.

Filmography

Stage

* '' Equus'' (2008), as Jill Mason

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Berges-Frisbey, Astrid 1986 births Living people Actresses from Barcelona Chopard Trophy for Female Revelation winners French film actresses American film actresses French people of American descent French people of Catalan descent French people of Spanish descent American people of French descent American people of Catalan descent American people of Spanish descent French television actresses American television actresses Motion capture actresses Spanish film actresses Spanish people of American descent Spanish people of French descent Spanish television actresses 21st-century French actresses 21st-century American actresses