Virginie Fernández (born 15 November 1976), known by her stage name Virginie Ledoyen (), is a French actress. She has appeared in French, English and American films.

Life and career

Ledoyen was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and raised in

Aubervilliers Aubervilliers () is a communes of France, commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis departments of France, department, Île-de-France regions of France, region, northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. Geography Localisation Aubervilliers is one of th ...

, the daughter of Olga, a restaurateur, and Bernard Fernández, a merchant who sold cleaning products and knives. Her paternal grandfather was Spanish. She was a print model from the age of two and later took on the stage name "Ledoyen" after the

maiden name When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries and cultures that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" ...

of her maternal grandmother, who was a

stage actress An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

. Ledoyen's film breakthrough came with '' A Single Girl'' (1995) (stylized ''la fille seule''), for which she was nominated for a

César Award for Most Promising Actress Cesar or César may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''César'' (film), a 1936 French romantic drama * ''César'' (play), a play by Marcel Pagnolt Places * Cesar, Portugal * Cesar Department, Colombia * Cesar River, in Colombia * Cesar ...

. She also received two César Award nominations for ''Les marmottes'' (1993) and '' L'eau froide'' (1994). Outside France, her best-known role is in '' The Beach'' (2000). In the fall of 2000, she signed a contract as a spokesmodel with the cosmetics company

L'Oréal L'Oréal S.A. () is a French multinational personal care corporation registered in Paris

. She was featured alongside two

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , . Models can be divided int ...

Laetitia Casta Laetitia Marie Laure Casta (; born 11 May 1978)FMD profile
Retrieved 4 December 2009. is a ...

and Noémie Lenoir. She portrayed the character Cosette in the 2000 French

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

miniseries In the United States, a miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. " Limited series" is ...

of ''

Les Misérables ''Les Misérables'' (, ) is a 19th-century French literature, French Epic (genre), epic historical fiction, historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published on 31 March 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. '' ...

''. On 29 September 2001, Ledoyen gave birth to her first child, a girl named Lila, with her boyfriend, production designer Louis Soubrier, whom she met on the set of ''La fille seule'' in 1995. She was in a short-lived marriage with Iain Rogers, a film director, from 2006 to 2007. From 2007 to 2015, she was in a relationship with actor Arie Elmaleh, whose brother was her co-star in '' The Valet''. Ledoyen and Elmaleh have a son, Isaac, born in July 2010, and a daughter, Amalia, born in April 2014. In 2013 Ledoyen was named as a member of the jury at the

70th Venice International Film Festival The 70th annual Venice International Film Festival, was held from 28 August to 7 September 2013, at Venice Lido in Italy. Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci was the jury president for the main competition. He was previously the presiden ...

Filmography

Other awards

* 1998: Prix Suzanne Bianchetti

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ledoyen, Virginie 1976 births French people of Spanish descent European Film Award for Best Actress winners Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres French film actresses People from Aubervilliers Actresses from Île-de-France French child actresses 20th-century French actresses 21st-century French actresses Living people