André Dussollier

Biography: life and films

For the past three decades, André Dussollier has been one of the more familiar faces in French cinema, and it is not hard to see why. His versatility is apparent in the multitude of roles he has assumed in his prolific career, roles that pretty well span the entire range from farce to the most challenging of dramas. In a career spanning almost half a century Dussollier has appeared in over a hundred films for cinema and television, appearing equally at home in films d'auteur and less demanding mainstream fare. So far, he has been honoured with three Césars, in the categories of Best Actor (for Alain Resnais's On connaît la chanson) and Best Supporting Actor (for Claude Sautet's Un coeur en hiver and François Dupeyron's La Chambre des officiers).

André Dussollier was born in Annecy, Haute-Savoie, France on 17th February 1946. Despite an early interest in acting, parental pressure led him to pursue a successful university career at Grenoble, where he studied contemporary literature. Aged 23, he then decided to embark on a career as an actor and went to Paris to take drama lessons under Jean Périmony. He was admitted to the Conservatoire and graduated with the first prize, before becoming a pensionnaire of the Comédie-Française in 1972. It was François Truffaut who gave him his first film role in Une belle fille comme moi (1972), having seen him in a stage production of Georg Büchner's play Léonce and Léna.

In the late 1970s and early '80s, Dussollier subsequently worked with several important directors of the French New Wave, including Claude Chabrol (Alice ou la dernière fugue), Éric Rohmer (Perceval le Gallois, Le Beau mariage) and Jacques Rivette (L'Amour par terre). In 1983 he embarked upon his long and fruitful association with director Alain Resnais, beginning with La Vie est un roman (1983). This was followed by seven other collaborations which included notably Mélo (1986) (which earned him his first Cesar nomination), On connaît la chanson (1987) and Coeurs (2006). Mainstream success came in 1985 with Coline Serreau's 3 hommes et un couffin, one of the most popular film comedies made in France, later remade in America as Three Men and a Baby (1987).

Since the late 1980s, André Dussollier has occupied a pre-eminent position in French cinema, dividing his time between popular comedies such as Anne Fontaine's Mon pire cauchemar (2011) and serious dramas like Marc Dugain's Une execution ordinaire (2010) (in which he was convincingly made up to resemble Joseph Stalin) and Volker Schlondorff's Diplomatie (2014). In 2005, director Pascal Thomas teamed him up with Catherine Frot to form the formidable crime-fighting duo Bélisaire and Prudence Beresford in a series of wacky Agatha Christie adaptations, starting with Mon petit doigt m'a dit... One of France's most seductive actors, André Dussollier brings not only depth and authenticity to his performances, but also a seemingly inexhaustible supply of charm and energy.

Filmography

Click here to view complete list of films...