Lambert Wilson

Lambert Wilson was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, on August 3, 1958. However, the surname denotes that his origins are not exactly French, and indeed, his father was Irish, and also an actor, Georges Wilson (1921- 2010). Jealous of family privacy, it seems that Wilson Sr. hid from the press that he had a wife and two children –one of them, Lambert–, so as not to have to endure the stalking of the papparazzi. Lambert himself seems to have inherited this personal care, for little is known of him other than that he had a hard time with death, almost followed by his mother and father, and a nervous breakdown soon after, where these deaths and much work seems to have converged negatively.

The acting bug clearly caught on through his father, and Lambert, after completing high school in France, studied at the London Drama Center between 1975 and 1977. His acting debut was precisely on stage, in Paris, accompanied by his father. He would also direct him in the cinema, in The Wild Woman (1989).

Aside from outright acting, Lambert sings live as a baritone, and has been in shows like “A Little Night Music.” He has recorded records, and expresses his admiration for classics such as Leonard Bernstein . Of course, he was a natural choice for Alain Resnais in his surprising musical On connaît la chanson (1997); he would repeat with this director in Pas la bouche (2003) and Private Affairs in Public Places (2006).

In his country he has worked with André Techiné – La rendezvous (1985)–, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi – It’s easier for a camel… (2003)–, Valérie Lemercier –Royal Palace! (2005)–. Other prestigious European directors he has been with are the Spanish Carlos Saura – El Dorado (1988)–, the Polish Andrzej Wajda – Los possesidos (1988) and the British Peter Greeneway – The Architect’s Belly (1988)–.

The actor admits to having some frustration with American cinema, because his adolescent dream was to succeed in that cinema, which he loved, and he ended up being in quite mediocre films. It is true that he had a fleeting presence in Julia (1977) – Fred Zinnemann asked him for a better role in Five days, one summer (1982) -, and James Ivory recruited him for Jefferson in Paris (1995), but the United States has been resisted, and his roles in the fiasco Catwoman (2004) or the Matrix Reloaded (2003) and Matrix Revolutions (2003) with the role of Merovingian, are not exactly memorable. The same can be said of Timeline(2003), Sahara (2005) and Babylon AD (2008), and even from A Brilliant Plan (2007), despite coinciding with Michael Caine .

Wilson acknowledges that he was not the obvious choice to play Brother Christian in Of Gods and Men (2010), the moving Cannes award-winning film about the martyred monks in Tibberine, Algeria. “There is something of a monk in me, something that is attracted to issues of faith, not religion, but faith and spirituality,” he commented in an interview with the New York Times. Perhaps he says it because of his solitary character, which has made him feel sad when he has had to work in Los Angeles. He would also play a man of faith, a Huguenot, in La princesse de Montpensier , where Bertrand Tavernier adapts a play by Madame de La Fayette . Both films benefited from Wilson’s singing talents.