| Name: |
Sophie Marceau |
| Born: |
November 17, 1966 |
| Birthplace: |
Paris, France |
| Nickname: |
Flatfoosie |
| Height: |
1,73 m |
| Hair: |
Brown |
| Eyes: |
Brown |
| 1980
- LA BOUM, SOPHIE'S DEBUT |
Sophie´s
real name is Sophie Maupu.
She was born in Gentilly on the 17 november 1966. Gentilly is a suburb
Paris and her father was working there as a truckdriver. Sophie's mum Simone
worked as seller in Galeries Lafayette. Sophie grewed up far away from
studios spots.Not long. Sophie Marceau began acting in films at fourteen.
At that time, she learned from one of her friends that Claude Pinoteau
(a french movie director) was looking for new faces, for a teenagers
movie called La Boum. This movie turned
out to be a huge success. This led to the 
sequel La Boum 2 (1982) for which she received the 1983 Cesar for Most
Promising Actress. She then bought back her contract with Gaumont
when she was sixteen years old for one milion of french franks.
As
we know, her given name was Sophie Maupu, but for cure professional reasons
she changed her last name to Marceau, although she doesn't like the art
of the French mime who many assume to be her father. Thus she takes this
name from the street in Paris named "avenue Marceau"
leading from the "Place Charles de Gaulle" (from the Arc de Triomphe) to
bridge over Seine named "Pont des l'Alma". Namely this avenue at stone's
throw from chez Artmédia,
the agency representing Sophie Marceau. But when Sophie Marceau asked how
to pronounce it, she responds simply, "Sophie".
She
has since become one of the most popular and respected actresses in her
own country - though she is still not an international star. At age 16,
Marceau starred with Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve in "Fort Saganne"
and then starred again with Depardieu in Maurice Pialat's "Police." In
that same year, 1984, Marceau made the first of three films with
Polish director Andrzej
Zulawski, "L'Amour Braque".
"Of course I had to borrow the money", she said, "I didn't
have such an amount. People did everything to keep me from 
doing
L'Amour Braque with Zulawski. It was violent and almost racist. I belonged
to Gaumont (The studio she then worked for), I was their little pet and
had to listen to them. But it was unbearable. I walked around the Champs
Elysees wandering what to do. I was afraid to go to prison for breach of
contract." Zulawski also directed her in "Mes Nuits Sont Plus Belles
Que Vos Jours" and "La Note Bleue."
As
she matured on-screen, her public image changed from the French cinema's
little sweetheart to lovely seductress; aided in part by an almost annual
series of articles on her by the French magazine Paris Match and by the
sultry sexiness early adulthood brought her, Marceau found herself frequently
voted atop a poll of French men as the woman they'd most
like to sleep with. Garth Pearce, famous film critic, said about
Sophie's sexappeal: "Marceau is even sexier in real life than on screen."
Her other film credits
include "Fanfan," with Vincent Perez; "Pour Sacha"; "Pacific Palisades";
"L'Etudiante"; "Chouans"; "Descente Aux Enfers" and "Joyeuses Paques."
- comedy with J. P. Belmondo.
| "I have no secrets anymore," she says about her much-reported
life. "They know everything about me." |
| ENTER
TO THE INTERNATIONAL CINEMA |
In the early 1990s, Marceau decided to take the international
road, leaving the French film industry behind. This choice has led to her
widest success: in 1995, she starred in Michelangelo Antonioni's Italian
film "Beyond the Clouds". This film, co-starring John Malkovich, has made
motion picture history in Japan. For the first time, the Japanese Administration
Commission of the Motion Picture Code of Ethics has allowed scenes depicting
pubic hair to be shown in Japanese cinemas. In the short time Sophie was
chosen as Ambassador of Charm for France in East
Asia and she enjoys great popularity there till now.
In
1995, Marceau also starred in another French
movie - "D'Artagnan's Daughter," in which she performed her own swordfighting
and most of the riding stunts.
| "Come to Paris," says Sophie Marceau, "and you'll see that
sex is all anyone talks about. People are obsessed! It's everywhere. How
long is your penis? How big are your breasts?" |
Her role in the Academy Award-winning "Braveheart" was
her first English-speaking part. Asked why he chose Sophie for the character
of Princess Isabelle, Mel Gibson replied: "Well, she's beautiful, she's
French and she's a good actress. The character needed to be at least two
of those things." Bettina Rheims, who has photographed
her many times, calls her "the most beautiful and sensual of young actresses".
| "Acting is wonderful therapy for people. Instead of suffering for
yourself, someone will do it for you." |
| SOPHIE
ISN'T ONLY ACTRESS |
In spring 1995, she directed her first film,"L'aube a
l'envers", an eight-minute short based on a screenplay she wrote while
filming Braveheart and starring Judith Grodoche. This film opened "Un Certain
Regard" at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival and was well received there.
She
is critical of French cinema: "It's great that American cinema poses
such a threat. In France we have all these pseudo-auteurs who don't have
a new idea in their heads." She has a Hollywood agent, but is not tempted
to move to Los Angeles and play the Hollywood system like Julie Delpy.
On
July 24th 1995 Sophie had her first child, a boy named Vincent. She is
unmarried, and lives in Paris (It's year 1996, but in present Sophie lives
in the villa by the see in Santa Monica near Los
Angeles and Vincend is signed up to local French school.) with Andrzej
Zulawski, a Polish director who is 24 years her senior, who is also the
father of her child. Sophie love her son much, she takes him with during
filming.
| "Women whose haven't child are living only halfly. And if some of
them is saying, that she must wait with child yet, because she has no time
for child, then it is just exluse, show of egoism..." |
In 1996 Sophie Marceau got the
most remebering role in the movie "Anna Karenina".
- perhaps the role of the century for any actress. A beautiful, aristocratic
young woman whose life at the peak of Imperial Russian society leaves
her lonely and unfulfilled...a dashing military man with a noble title
and a passionate heart...an affair that begins as a private infatuation,
but soon scandalizes an entire city... Count Leo Tolstoy's classic romantic
novel, Anna Karenina, paints an unforgettable portrait of two people who
lose themselves in the throes of a love so powerful that it comes to dominate
their very existences, changing forever their friendships, families and
futures. Their scandalous affair is contrasted in the parallel tale of
a disillusioned but wealthy landowner and his marriage to a jilted society
girl. Although their union begins tentatively, over time it deepens and
flourishes, bringing the pair happiness and fulfillment beyond their dreams.
| SOPHIE
MARCEAU - PROTECTOR OF NATURE |
Sophie
is an outspoken opponent of blood sports, and has joined Brigitte Bardot
in protests against dove-shooting in the Gironde and bull-fighting in Provence. 
"I
detest all forms of violence. For me, the toreador who tortures the bull
loses his dignity as a man. One cannot respect life and approve of this
game of death." She also loves the countryside and spends a lot
of time there. Sophie used to own an antique farmhouse in Seine-et-Marne,
but left it for good after her cats were shot by hunters and one of her
dogs, an eleven-year-old cocker spaniel named Lolita, was stolen.
| "I need the seasons to live to the rythm of rain and sun. In town,
It's like you can hardly make the difference between night and day. " |
In addition to her work
for animal welfare, Sophie is a patron of Arc-en-Ciel
("Rainbow"), an organisation which helps sick children realise their dreams.
Sophie has published a book called "Menteuse"
(Liar), Stock editorship in Spring of 1996. So far I have not seen it,
but it is supposed to be available in France, maybe in some other European
countries, too. Her first book is a semi-autobiographical novel. To the
question if it is very autobiographical, she respoded: "More or less. I
felt free to switch between truth and fiction." The book follows progress
of a young actress as she travels to Cannes and America, and as she reflects
on her childhood.
She has been chosen as the new face of Guerlain,
for their perfume Champs-Elysées in 1996. The commercial shows Sophie
getting out of her boyfriend's car, apparently after an argument. She then
returns to the car, grabs a bunch of flowers from the passenger seat, and
runs along the Champs-Elysées with the Arc de Triomphe in the background,
tossing the flowers in the air. It was filming at five in the morning and
directed in Paris by Peter Lindbergh. Asked how she felt to be appearing
in their advertising as the epitome of French style and culture, she replied
simply: "I don't see much difference from the girl I was at twelve." She
wanted that job. Simply asked her agent and the agreement was her. Commerce
billboard even inspired French songwriter Julien Clerk to write song "Sophie
Marceau's breasts". Her reaction you can read in news.
The head slogan of the commercial campaigne is "Life is best played without
script". Just right for Sophie?
Sophie Marceau also insured
her breasts for several millions francs and explained: "After all they
are the most beautifull part of my body."
| "Parfum is something transparent, invisible, indescribable... I
decided to press my face into it." |
| "I love to taste, to vibrate, to live!" |
Her
stage debut in Jean Anouilh's "Euridyce" in 1991 brought her a Moliere
Award for most Promising Newcomer. She also starred as Eliza Dolittle in
"Pygmalion" at the Theatre des Arts Hebertot.
Sophie
was recently in Italy filming Vera Belmont's "Marquise",
about the 17th century actress Marquise Thérèse de Gorle,
who was the source of rivalry between Molière and Racine. Filming
was budgeted about 70 million francs and had released date of September
1997. In year 1998 she also starred in the "Firelight" and "Franck Spadone".
Release of a new film Sophie starring "A midsummer's night dreams" with
Michelle Pfeiffer is set to middle of 1999.
The
newest film with Sophie playing in is "World Is Not Enough". (see NEWS)
In this Bond film she will play apposite Pierce Brosnan.
Sophie Marceau At Artmedia
10 avenue George-V
75008 Paris
FRANCE
c/o Artmedia
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