LIFE OF PI

GERARD DEPARDIEU (Cook) is renowned worldwide for his versatility and his unique combination of gentleness and brutish physicality. Born in France, from humble beginnings, Depardieu become a worldwide movie star. The award-winning actor has enjoyed a film career spanning more than four decades, and has appeared in over 170 films. Many of those films have garnered him critical and commercial success, both in his native Europe and around the world.

Depardieu made his screen debut in the short film Le Beatnik et le minet (1965) and began to appear as a bit player in full-length films in the early 1970s. His performance as a young thug in Les Valseuses (1973) brought him his first real notice, and he subsequently appeared in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 (1976), François Truffaut's Le Dernier Métro (1980; The Last Metro), Loulou (1980), Le Retour de Martin Guerre (1981; The Return of Martin Guerre), Andrzej Wajda's Danton (1983), Jean de Florette (1986), and its sequel, Manon des Sources (1986; Manon of the Spring). He starred in Camille Claudel (1989), and in 1990 Depardieu won the approval of fans and critics alike in the title role of Cyrano de Bergerac, a box-office smash in 1990, for which he won a Best Actor Oscar nomination. The film garnered nine Césars – the national film award of France - including Depardieu's Best Actor award, a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, and the 1990 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Male Performance.

Depardieu starred alongside Andie MacDowell in the 1990 romantic comedy Green Card, playing a French musician who agrees to a marriage of convenience. The following year he shared the role of 17th-century composer Marin Marais with his son Guillaume in the biopic Tous les matins du monde (All The Mornings of the World).

Depardieu has played a wide variety of roles, including both historical figures (from peasants to the French Revolutionary leader Georges Danton and artist Auguste Rodin) and contemporary figures (from composers to thugs). He is notable for projecting a screen image of masculine strength that was nevertheless imbued with gentleness and sensitivity. At one point, he acted in as many as six films a year, and became the most popular actor in Europe, achieving international reputation.

Depardieu maintains many interests outside of acting. A wine enthusiast, he owns a chateau and winery where he creates his own vintages.

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