Celebrity Biographies
Berenice Bejo
For having achieved stardom playing an actress in a silent film, Bérénice Bejo is causing a lot to talk about. And no wonder, because in The Artist she composes one of those characters who fall in love instantly, to whom she talks about the repetition of the Amelie phenomenon with Audrey Tautou.
Bérénice Bejo was born on July 7, 1976 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, although she moved to France with her parents at the age of three. Her father is the filmmaker Miguel Bejo, who has three films to her credit, she will drink her first drinks of cinema from him, and under her supervision she will enroll in acting courses. Like many young people, her first works take place in short films such as Pain perdu , from 1993. Her feature film debut takes place with Les soeurs Hamlet (Abdelkrim Bahloul, 1998). She will develop a solid career in France, in which an important turning point is her work with Gérard Jugnot , director and co-star, in Melleiur espoir feminin(2000), for which she received a César nomination for Best New Actress.
I could not miss the call from Hollywood. Before she was a Hollywood diva in the first talkies, thanks to The Artist , she was called upon by Brian Helgeland to be in the medieval adventures of A Knight’s Tale (2001). It was a small role, which she did not contribute much to, but she knew how they spent it in the big studios. And she returned once more to France, where what she made of herself gave her much more satisfaction. This is how it happened in the drama Comme un avion ( Marie-France Pisier , 2002), where she was the protagonist along with the director herself, and in 24 hours in the life of a woman (Laurent Bohnik, 2003), an adaptation of Stefan ‘s work Zweig .
This exotic-looking brunette actress with a captivating smile seems surrounded by an aura that makes her very attractive. She is good for period films, in which the female characters have a certain glamor. Hence, she gives life to an actress – once again, anticipating The Artist – in Le grand rôle (2004), or she immerses herself in the world of sophisticated spies in OSS 117 (2006), where she herself describes her character as “Hitchcockian heroine”. In this film, she coincides with two decisive characters in her professional and personal life: the actor Jean Dujardin and the director Michel Hazanavicius , with whom she will make the unforgettable silent genius of The Artist .(2011). In addition, Hazanavicius is her husband and father of two children, born in 2008 and 2011.
In Bejo’s filmography, with titles that for the most part have not transcended the borders of the French country, La Maison (2007) stands out, a film with the Spanish Sergi López and one of his favorite directors, Manuel Poirier .
On her breakout role, Peppy in The Artist , she’s very candid about how lucky she’s been: “She’s like, ‘oh my God. This will never happen again.’ I don’t think there’s going to be another silent movie. So it’s me and no one else. I feel very lucky.”