Gérard Depardieu

Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu (, , ; born 27 December 1948) is a French actor. An icon of French cinema, considered a world star in the same way as Alain Delon or Brigitte Bardot, he has completed over 250 films since 1967, most of which as a lead actor. He is also a film producer, businessman, vineyard owner, and occasional director. Depardieu has worked with over 150 film directors including François Truffaut, Bertrand Blier, Maurice Pialat, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Ridley Scott, Jean-Luc Godard, and Bernardo Bertolucci. He is the second highest-grossing actor in the history of French cinema behind Louis de Funès. His body of work also includes many television productions, several records and, as of 2025, 19 stage plays and 9 books. He is known for having portrayed numerous leading historical and fictitious figures including Cyrano de Bergerac, Georges Danton, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Auguste Rodin, Christopher Columbus, Jean Valjean, Edmond Dantès, Joseph Stalin and Grigori Rasputin, as well as Obelix in four of the live action Asterix films.

Growing up in poverty in Châteauroux, central France, Depardieu had a difficult youth before settling in Paris where he became an actor. In 1974, he had his breakthrough role in '' Going Places'', becoming an overnight star. Depardieu quickly established himself as a leading actor in European cinema and proved himself a versatile performer by appearing in a wide variety of productions, including drama, comedy, crime and avant-garde films. He has received acclaim for his performances in '' The Last Metro'' (1980), for which he won the César Award for Best Actor, in ''Police'' (1985), for which he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, '' Jean de Florette'' (1986), and ''Cyrano de Bergerac'' (1990), for which he won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and his second César Award for Best Actor as well as garnering a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He co-starred in Peter Weir's comedy ''Green Card'' (1990), winning a Golden Globe Award, and later acted in several big-budget Hollywood films, including Ridley Scott's '' 1492: Conquest of Paradise'' (1992), Randall Wallace's '' The Man in the Iron Mask'' (1998), and Ang Lee's '' Life of Pi'' (2012).

Depardieu is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur and Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite. He was granted citizenship of Russia in January 2013 (officially adopted name in ), and became a cultural ambassador of Montenegro during the same month. During the early 2010s, his tax exile in Russia and his support of Vladimir Putin caused controversy in France.

Depardieu was accused of sexual misconduct as early as the 1990s, though this did not develop into formal complaints until the late 2010s. In December 2020, French authorities charged him with rape. Depardieu denied any wrongdoing, but a number of controversies since 2020, not limited to the accusations of rape, damaged his popularity in France and abroad, resulting in his being stripped in 2023 of the National Order of Quebec. In May 2025, he was convicted of sexual assault against two women. He has appealed his sentencing.

Early life

Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu was born on 27 December 1948 in Châteauroux, Indre, France, to a working-class family. He is the third of six children of Anne Jeanne Josèphe (née Marillier), a stay-at-home mother known as "La Lilette", and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu (better known in his neighborhood as "Dédé" because he could write only two letters), a metal worker and volunteer fireman. Not wishing to have a child at the time, Depardieu's mother tried unsuccessfully to abort him.

Depardieu grew up in poverty in a two-room apartment at 39 rue du Maréchal-Joffre, Châteauroux, with his five siblings. His mother was not very affectionate, and sometimes violent to her children. His father, who suffered from a severe alcohol addiction, was often absent from home. Depardieu helped his mother when she was in labour with his younger brothers and sisters. His family eventually nicknamed him "Pétard" or "Pétarou", because of the habit he had acquired of breaking wind incessantly. Depardieu's parents were both born in 1923; Anne died of a heart attack in 1988 and René, who suffered from cirrhosis, died two months after her.

Depardieu spent more time on the streets than in school, leaving at the age of 13. Practically illiterate and half stammering, he learned to read only later. In his 2014 autobiography, Depardieu revealed that he had prostituted himself as a child, starting when he was 10 years old and could already pass as 15. He would sometimes rob his clients. He was later employed at a printworks, and took part in boxing matches in his spare time. He also supported himself by working as a beach attendant during summers.

During his difficult adolescence, he turned to theft and smuggling all kinds of goods, notably cigarettes and alcohol, to the G.I.s at the large American air base of Châteauroux-Déols. He also acted as a bodyguard for two prostitutes who came down from Paris on the G.I.s' payday. Depardieu later credited those two women with teaching him sex. According to his own account, he was put on probation at one point though he never went to jail. In 1968, Depardieu's childhood best friend Jacky Merveille, also a hoodlum from Châteauroux, died in a car accident. This prompted Depardieu, who had already moved to Paris at that time, to consider his future and to try and do something with his life.

Career

Early roles and stardom

As a teenager, Depardieu befriended Michel Pilorgé, a slightly older boy from a more affluent background. In 1965, Pilorgé, whose family owned a flat in Paris and who wanted to settle in the capital to become an actor, proposed Depardieu, then aged 16, to come with him. Depardieu accepted and left Châteauroux for Paris. Out of curiosity, he began attending the acting class Pilorgé was taking at the Théâtre National Populaire. One day the teacher, Lucien Arnaud, noticed Depardieu and asked him to perform. The experience helped trigger Depardieu's vocation.

Depardieu next took acting classes with Jean-Laurent Cochet while making a living as a door-to-door salesman. To compensate for his lack of education, he heavily studied the classics. At Cochet's request, he followed a therapy with Alfred A. Tomatis to correct his disastrous diction.

Depardieu became the boyfriend, and later husband, of actress Élisabeth Guignot, who introduced him into entertainment circles and the Parisian bourgeoisie. In 1966, Guignot brought him on the first film project he worked on, ''Christmas Carole'', directed by Agnès Varda, where he was cast as a beatnik. The film was never completed due to a lack of funding and distribution deal. In 1967, Depardieu made his first actual screen appearance in the short film ''Le Beatnik et le minet'', directed by Roger Leenhardt: his diction was still so bad at the time that his voice had to be dubbed by another actor.

Working in theater, Depardieu became a regular performer at the Café de la Gare

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