Michael lonsdale

Michael Lonsdale, born as Alfred de Turris, and also artistically known as Michel Lonsdale, was first born in Paris, France, on May 24, 1931. His father was English and his mother Irish, and he spent his childhood in England , which explains why he speaks French and English perfectly. The crowning glory of his long acting career has reached him about to turn 80, playing a friar in Of Gods and Men ( Xavier Beauvois, 2010), an extraordinary film that has given him the César for best supporting actor, an award for which he had been nominated on two other occasions. His role as a man of faith who attends the dispensary of his convent in Algeria is simply moving. Curiously, he is not the first priest or friar that he has played, it is a role that he has played many times on screen, although never with a character of the depth and dedication of brother Luc. Titles such as The Trial ( Orson Welles , 1962), A Breath in the Heart ( Louis Malle , 1971), The Name of the Rose ( Jean-Jacques Annaud , 1986), Goya’s Ghosts (Milos Forman , 2006), cases where the ecclesiastics were almost always quite sinister types.

In any case, Lonsdale has always spoken very clearly about how his Catholic faith has brightened his life, especially since he joined the charismatic movement in 1987. But before that he had come a long way that included the separation of his parents, and an adolescence in Casablanca, Morocco. The outbreak of the Second World War forced Lonsdale and her family to remain there, which made it possible for her to discover Hollywood cinema at the hands of American soldiers. Among other films, and it seems like a joke, the mythical Casablanca. The actor says that there he was impressed by meeting a Muslim actor who spoke to him about God in a way that he could understand, to the point that he considered converting to Islam. But his mother, a Catholic, who had rediscovered her faith after reading Pascal, made it easier for her to meet a Dominican, and little by little she reconciled with Catholicism. Lonsdale admitted that “I have been a somewhat lukewarm Christian, living selfishly,” but “religion became the essential part of my life.” Far from separating him from his passion for art, “it is closely linked to the other two components of my life, cinema and painting.” When asked if his faith has been an obstacle in his work, he affirms that it has not, although he reveals that he refused to work in Amen .from Costa-Gavras for his denigrating and false portrayal of Pius XII; he had worked with that director on Special Section (1975).

In 1947 Lonsdale moved to Paris with the intention of becoming a painter. But his life would take him to the world of acting, and he began to take classes at Tania Balachova’s school, so he would make his stage debut at the age of 24. It was in a Clifford Odets play , in which he was directed by Raymond Rouleau , and he would never leave the theater. He made his film debut a year later with It Happened in Eden , and had the good fortune to work with Orson Welles in The Trial .(1962), a brief scene that he remembers repeating twenty times. Her film roles have almost always been brief, but always with character characters, and in interesting films. The truth is that reviewing his filmography is reviewing a list of great directors and titles. With Fred Zinnemann she did And the day of revenge arrived (1964) and the unforgettable Jackal (1973) . With François Truffaut we have seen him in Stolen Kisses (1967) and The Bride Dressed in Black (1968). René Clair directed him in Is Paris Burning? (1966). He’s been in comedies like Grandpa Frozen(1968), together with the ineffable Louis de Fùnes.

The list of famous directors who have requested their services is endless: Alain Resnais ( Stavisky , 1974), Luis Buñuel ( El fantasma de la libertad , 1974), Joseph Losey ( A romantic Englishwoman , 1975, and The Other Mr. Klein , 1976). , Marguerite Duras (the experimental Indian Song , 1975), Wojciech Has ( The Trials of Balthasar Kober , 1988), James Ivory ( The Remains of the Day , 1993, and Jefferson in Paris , 1995), Claude Sautet (Nelly and Mr. Arnaud , 1995), John Frankenheimer ( Ronin , 1998)… Even Steven Spielberg claimed it for Munich (2005) and Alejandro Amenábar for Ágora (2009). Few titles in which he has been can be described as purely commercial, perhaps the clearest is his involvement with a Bond who was not Sean Connery from The Name of the Rose , but Roger Moore from Moonraker (1979). On the small screen he rubbed shoulders with Alec Guinness in the miniseries Smiley’s People (1982), based on the novel byJohn le Carré .

Under the orders of the Italian Ermanno Olmi Il villaggio di cartone , in which his role was that of a… priest. He retired from the screens in 2016 with the sci-fi film Sculpt .