Niels arestrup

It seemed destined to succeed in the cinema, since Niels Arestrup was born on February 8, 1949 in the municipality of Montreuil (Seine-Saint Denis), in France, the same place where George Méliès built the world’s first film studio, and where also put another Charles Pathé. His parents, of modest extraction, were of Danish origin.

Deciding to pursue acting as a young man, he studied with legendary drama teacher Tania Balachova. At first he directed his career solely towards the theater, but he soon made his film debut at the hands of Samy Pavel, who gave him the leading role in Miss O’Gynie et les hommes fleurs , where he played a homosexual who distanced himself from her lover because a friend of his from the past reappeared. He was also Trotsky’s secretary in Alain Resnais ‘ Stavisky .

From the late 70s he was very prolific in the cinema, with titles such as La chanson de Roland , by Frank Cassenti, Toda una mujer , by Daniel Duval , El futuro es mujer , by Marco Ferreri . But he kept giving priority to the draws; It is clear that his favorite work of his entire career was done on stage. “An experience is engraved in the heart if several phenomena are combined: the audience, the co-stars and the director. Taking all this into account, I would say that the role I remember most fondly was that of Lopakhine in “The Garden of the Cherries”, by Chekhov, directed by Peter Brook at the Les Bouffes du Nord theater in Paris, in 1981″, recalls the actor.

He became known internationally especially when he played a real character, the conductor Zoltan Szanton, in Rendezvous with Venus , where the protagonist was the opera diva Karin Anderson, played by Glenn Close .

However, since then he has continued to concentrate on his theatrical activities, and on films that hardly left France, with a few exceptions, such as the excellent From beating, my heart has stopped , by Jacques Audiard , where he was a real estate agent who uses violent methods, father of a boy who supports him as a bully, but would rather be a pianist like his deceased mother. He was also an old friend who advised the protagonist, totally paralyzed, in Julian Schnabel’s clever The Diving Bell and the Butterfly .

But his international consecration came when he played the mobster who controls everything that happens in a prison in A Prophet , a prison drama in which he once again placed himself under the orders of Audiard. It came to be a candidate for the Golden Globe and the Oscar for best foreign film, won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and swept the Césars, with 9 awards, including the one for best secondary for Arestrup. She spares no praise for the director. “Jacques is a great friend and I consider him the best French filmmaker of the moment. His style of editing, the beauty of each take; he has a very fresh and professional perspective, so working with him is always a pleasure”, explains the actor.

His work as a capo has remained in the retina of moviegoers and has opened doors for him. After Sarah’s Key and The Farewell Case , among others, Steven Spielberg himself called him for a leading role in War Horse . He plays a wise old man who takes care of his little granddaughter, to whom the protagonist horse returns her joy.

Will this job open the keys to Hollywood for you? It is early to know. For now, he has just shot the drama Aimer à perdre la raison again in his country , where he is the protagonist again along with Tahar Rahim , his pupil in A Prophet .