Audrey Tautou. Photo by Siren-Com. Wikimedia

Top 10 Amazing Facts about Audrey Tautou


 

Audrey Justine Tautou is a French actress. At the age of 18, she made her television acting debut and her feature film debut in Venus Beauty Institute. She received critical acclaim and won the César Award for Most Promising Actress after that.

Tautou rose to international prominence as the lead actress in the 2001 film Amélie. It also received critical acclaim and was a box-office success. She has since starred in a variety of films. She has received critical acclaim for her many roles, including her portrayal of French fashion designer Coco Chanel.

Audrey Tautou has received three César Award nominations and two BAFTA nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Tautou has modeled for Chanel, Montblanc, L’Oréal, and a variety of other brands. She actively supports several charities.

1. She was born in Beaumont, California

Tautou grew up in Montluçon after being born in Beaumont. She was born on 9th August 1976. Her father, Bernard Tautou, is a dentist, and her mother, Eveline, is an educator. 

Her name was inspired by actress Audrey Hepburn. Tautou developed an interest in acting at a young age and began taking acting classes at the Cours Florent.  She learned English and Italian there.

2. Audrey Tautou won her first award in her early 20s

Audrey Tautou. Photo by Siren-Com. Wikimedia

Audrey Tautou was cast in a minor role in the 1996 television film Coeur de Cable. She also had a number of minor roles in other French films. She won the ‘Best Young Actress Award’ at the 9thJeuneComédien de Cinema Festival in Bezier in 1998. Director Tonie Marshall noticed her and cast her in the 1999 film Venus Beauty Institute.

Audrey Tautou delivered an outstanding performance and was named the Cesar Award winner for ‘Most Promising Actress.’

3. She appeared in the film Dirty Pretty Things

Dirty Pretty Things is a story of twisted lies, corruption, and, yes, organ trafficking in the London underworld. Tautou plays Senay, a Turkish immigrant whose complicated, never-completed romance with Okwe.

Many haunting images from Dirty Pretty Things stick with the viewer long after the credits have rolled. Such images include Tautou’s character telling Okwe about her final encounter with her vile, degenerate boss. It’s the anti-patriarchy, anti-establishment line of the 2000s. Tautou’s signature wide-eyed solemnity is as attractive as it is terrifying: “I bit him.”

BBC Films and Celador Films co-produced it. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

4. Audrey Tautou acted, a film based on a novel

Audrey Tautou, with Joséphine de Meaux. Photo by Siren-Com. Wikimedia

A Very Long Engagement, an epic, sensual romance set during World War I and in the aftermath of the war. It reunites Tautou with Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Unsurprisingly, Jeunet has praised Tautou’s abilities: “She’s the perfect actress for me because she can do both comedy and drama.” She maintains that innocent air about her as she searches for her fiancée. She weaves in and out of the lives and stories of other soldiers along the way. Unflinching in this Oscar-nominated film.

Tautou embodied that young, relentless lover with a sensuality and command that few actresses could have done convincingly. Her character has a polio-related disability. The scene in which she chases the car carrying Manech to war is unforgettable.

5. Audrey Tautou stars in Priceless

In the film Priceless (often compared to Breakfast at Tiffany’s)Tautou plays Irène. She’s the most beautiful, dangerous, and unapologetic gold digger on the French Riviera. Her best-laid plans begin to unravel when she develops feelings for a middle-class man. Rather than dating him, she trains him to be an “opportunist.”

A series of ridiculous scenes unfold in true romantic-comedy fashion. The important lesson being how to get what you want from the opposite sex. Irène has little depth, and the film has little depth as well, but it’s pretty clear that’s the point.

Tautou is such a genuine, Gucci-clad femme fatale that it’s difficult to dislike her. She is sincere in her delivery, as she always is—even when delivering a sincerely superficial character. She also plays an incredibly convincing drunk, which some of today’s best actresses have struggled to do.

6. Tautou portrayed Coco Chanel in a film

Coco Chanel. Photo by Marius Borgeaud. Wikimedia

Tautou’s performance in this biopic brought to life a person who was just a big name in black letters. Coco Before Chanel chronicles the fashion icon’s rise to wealth and fame. Such fame was always complicated by poverty and painful love affairs. Tautou is the perfect young Gabrielle Chanel.  Reserved at times, but always determined.

Although she is unable to completely disappear into the role, she does lose the irresistible gleam in her eyes for a more modest appearance. When she learns that her lover is engaged to a wealthy woman, she looks him in the eyes and says, almost convincingly, “Better a mistress than a wife.” The moment is powerful, made even more so by the later revelation that Coco Chanel never married.

Instead of releasing Coco Before Chanel in the United States, Warner Bros. delegated distribution to Sony Pictures Classics. In the United States, the film grossed $6 million. 

7. Audrey Tautou stared in Delicacy

David Foenkino’s book was begging to be adapted into a film starring Audrey Tautou. Nathalie is the novel’s main character, and Tautou’s performance as a young wife, turned widow, turned lover anew completes her.

Tautou has previously played a grieving woman, but as Nathalie, she goes through genuine grief. She portrays a sadness that is so quiet, still, and intense that it appears almost eternal. She plays the ideal comedic foil to comedian François Damiens (Nathalie’s lover later in the film). Nathalie entertains him and the audience with stories of America.

8. Audrey Tautou is a model

Tautou was named Chanel No. 5’s new spokes model in 2009, succeeding Nicole Kidman. She has also appeared in advertisements for L’Oreal, Montblanc, and several other companies. 

Tautou has been dubbed a fashionista and icon by the press over the years. She has attended major fashion week events as well as smaller events all over the world. The press has dubbed her “The Chanel Muse” at times.

9. Tautou was in a music video

She appeared in the music video for British singer-songwriter Charlie Winston’s song “I Love Your Smile.”

10. She lives in Paris

Audrey Tautou, with Joséphine de Meaux. Photo by Siren-Com. Wikimedia

Tautou says she prefers to base herself in France. She intends to focus her career there rather than in the United States.

She resides in Paris’s 9th Arrondissement, France