Léa Seydoux

Léa Seydoux: biography

Léa Seydoux is a French actress and model. The audience remembers her for her work in high grossing Hollywood films, as well as famous French drama films. After her first appearance on the screen, it already became clear to film critics that she was a new Sophie Marceau. With her simple presence in the frame, the actress brought tenderness and sensuality to the whole movie.

The list of movies that Léa starred in speaks for itself: Girlfriends, The Last Mistress, The Beautiful Person, Belle Épine, My Wife's Romance, and of course, the raucous film Blue Is the Warmest Colour.

Childhood and youth

Léa Seydoux was born in Paris on July 1, 1985, in a wealthy and well-known family. Her father is an entrepreneur, and her mother comes from the dynasty of oil tycoons. The aunt and uncle of the future celebrity are the heads of the French film studio Gaumont Film, and her grandfather is the chairman of Pathé film company.

Léa's parents filed for divorce when the girl was very little. Since then, Seydoux, who remained with her father in Paris, often came to visit her mother in Senegal. In her childhood, she saw the opera Carmen, and the impression it had made on the girl was so strong that the future star decided to become an Opera singer too. But her voice was not good enough to sing in the opera, so she signed up for theater studio instead. Studying there helped the young girl to overcome her shyness and learn the basics of theatrical art.

In her teenage years, Léa began to experience panic attacks; the girl became antisocial; she was afraid of the heights and confined spaces. To overcome her fears, once Seydoux decided to make a short flight from Paris to Lyon and got on the plane. But the girl managed to cope with the anxiety she felt towards the world entirely only when she started her career as an actress.

At the age of eighteen, Léa decided, that she would act in movies and TV shows. At first, her relatives had doubts about the girl's choice, but she managed to stand on her guns. Léa started attending acting classes in Paris and then in New York.

Films

The creative biography of Léa Seydoux began in 2005 after the girl's appearance in the music video of the Spanish singer Raphael. And the next year, she already made her debut in a teenage comedy film Girlfriends, which was exceptionally popular in France and the United States.

Every year, Léa Seydoux appeared on the screen in new motion pictures. In 2007, she played Oliva in the movie The Last Mistress, and the film 13 French Street, but the young actress felt the first visible results after she got the part of Junie de Chartres (The Princess de Clèves) in the movie The Beautiful Person. She got into the character of a young schoolgirl, who became the object of desire of a young teacher.

Léa created a new image in the French cinematography, receiving Chopard Talent Award for her work, as well as a nomination for The César Award. People started talking about Seydoux as the future of the French cinematography, calling her the new Sophie Marceau.

Soon the movie list of the young actress was enriched with her work on the film Des poupées et des Anges, which also starred Samy Naceri, the famous leading actor in the movie Taxi. The next picture which featured Léa was a French drama film about love called Des Illusions.

In 2009, the actress appeared in the character of Maria in the drama movie Lourdes. The film was shown at the Venice film festival and was awarded an honorary prize. She manages to find her own acting style. Film critics point out the individuality and uniqueness of Seydoux in comparison to other famous actresses.

A girl from a wealthy French family cannot but be a fashion diva. Especially when Louis Vuitton himself is a family friend. The girl received her first shoes from the legend of the fashion world at the age of twelve.

Despite her low height for a model (Léa Seydoux is 5 feet 51 inches tall), Léa became a famous model. Her first photo shoot was for the American Apparel magazine. And when her acting career started taking off, Seydoux appeared on the cover of several fashion magazines.

In 2011, the celebrity became the face of a new perfume, "Candy" from Prada. Soon the same brand signed a contract with the actress to advertise the line of jewelry.

By the way, Léa is a pretty good judge of the latter: she has a whole collection of expensive jewelry with gemstones from famous world brands. Soon Léa was among the leading models of the Silent Models agency.

Her work on the motion picture Belle épine, directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, brought this French actress success. For this role, Seydoux received one more César Award. In the same year, critics praised the performance of the actress in the tragic film My Wife's Romance. But the most successful roles she played starting from the year 2011. Her best movie at the time according to film critics was the drama film Sister, the shooting of which was held in Switzerland on a ski resort.

In 2013, Seydoux didn't know that she would become famous worldwide after the controversial movie Blue Is the Warmest Color. Here, viewers saw the actress get into the character of Emma, an artist with sky-blue hair, and actress Adèle Exarchopoulos performed the role of Adèle. This movie tells the story of the unconventional love of two girls. The directors created a lot of sensual scenes, but it was not this that the groovy actress felt insecure about, but the fact that she had to get her hair dyed blue.

The creators of the project decided to start the work on the film from shooting the scandalous sex scene with the girls. The crew filmed a few minutes of the movie for a whole week, working eight hours a day on it. The actresses were exhausted; however, it helped them create a bond with each other. Later Adèle even called Seydoux her older sister who always gives wise life advice. For the work on this film, the actress received another César Award, as well as The Palme d'Or.

One of the last iconic works of the actress was the motion picture Beauty and the Beast, where Vincent Cassel became her partner on the set. The budget of the film impressed even the most ardent skeptics because many considered $33 million to be a too large sum for such a romantic drama movie. However, viewers appreciated the efforts of the creators, demanding the sequel to the story.

Soon, the charming French actress slowly but surely reached the "dream factory." Here the directors saw the versatile personality of the young actress and at first offered her only cameo roles, but in the projects, directed by famous filmmakers. Léa Seydoux made a minor appearance in Inglourious Basterds directed by Quentin Tarantino, which surprised the audience. She also played a cameo role of a cashier in the film Midnight in Paris, which at first was given to Carla Bruni, and in 2011, Seydoux had a part of Isabella of Angoulême in Robin Hood movie.

Soon Léa appeared on the set of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol together with Tom Cruise, but the significant success still awaited the talented French girl in the future. In the autumn of 2014, it became known that Léa was going to become the next Bond girl. This part of Bondiana, which was called Spectre, was shot in Rome.

Soon, the movie list of the actress was enriched with her work on a film adaptation of a famous novel. Léa performed the leading role in the drama film based on the book The Diary of a Chambermaid written by the French author Octave Mirbeau. The main character changes several households in search of the perfect place. In the last house, the girl falls in love with a stableman, Joseph (Vincent Lindon), but he becomes a suspect in a murder investigation.

In 2016, a new project was added to the filmography of Seydoux. The young French-Canadian film director Xavier Dolan presented the movie It's Only the End of the World, featuring Léa in the leading role. The director won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival for this work.

The motion picture tells the story of a writer, Louis, who, after twelve years of separation from his family decides to come back home to tell his relatives that he has a terminal illness, but his eccentric family members are not trying to help him, only complicating the rehabilitation process. In the new film, Dolan worked exclusively with French actors and took famous representatives of French cinematography to Canada, where the shooting of the film took place.

In one of her interviews, the French actress herself commented on the work on this project. According to Seydoux, Dolan managed to show his vision of some problems, as well as filled the work with deep thoughts and emotions, creating his own new cinematic culture in real life.

Now the actress continues to participate in the shooting of various movies. Back in 2016, the French media reported that Léa got a part in Kursk motion picture, which was directed by the Dane Thomas Vinterberg. The audience remembered Vinterberg by his following works: The Celebration (1998), The Hunt (2012) and Far from the Madding Crowd (2015).

The new film was based on the real tragic events that took place on August 2, 2000, on the Russian nuclear submarine "Kursk," which was located in The Barents Sea. Léa Seydoux portrayed Tanya, the wife of the captain of the submarine. The premiere of the film took place in 2018, and it became clear by the number of views of the trailer of the film which appeared earlier that year, that a lot of people were waiting for the movie to come out.

Léa Seydoux also continues to participate in photo shoots. The last of her large-scale project was the filming in the video for the advertising campaign of Louis Vuitton perfume near Lon Creek Falls in South Africa. On Instagram, the users are looking forward to seeing the new images of the actress, waiting for more fashion shows.

Personal life

The personal life of Léa Seydoux is hidden from the eyes of the public. The charming French girl prefers to keep her private life a secret. It is only known that Léa absolutely adores shopping and expensive boutiques, leads a luxurious lifestyle, buys beautiful things and jewelry, spending everything that she earns.

At first, the girl did not speak publicly about whether she had a boyfriend or not, reporting only that most of all she appreciates in men their attractive appearance. Such secrecy of the actress became a topic for rumors, and after the release of the movie Blue Is the Warmest Color, the media started gossiping about the girl's preferred sexual orientation; however, all the assumptions turned out to be false.

In 2015, André Meyer, a model, became Léa's boyfriend. Soon the journalists already found out that Léa was pregnant. Paparazzi caught the actress on camera when she was walking on the seaside in a closed swimsuit. Even then it was already evident, that the body of Seydoux was going through some changes. Later Léa appeared in public with a rounded tummy at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film It's Only The End of The World was presented. In January of 2017, the actress gave birth to her son. The boy was named Georges Meyer.

In February of 2017, there already were new photos of the 31-year-old actress with a newborn. Paparazzi in Paris managed to take pictures of the family during their shopping in the Bonpoint store.

Her fans again noted the fashionable look of their favorite actress. A lot of them remembered her photo shoots for AnOther and Crash magazines. Previously, her fans also appreciated the vibrant photo shoot for the French magazine Marie Claire.

Léa Seydoux now

Léa Seydoux has a net worth of $5 million. In 2018, the actress again made a transatlantic flight to work on the Hollywood fantasy drama film Zoe. The film was about two scientists of the future, who are developing a new kind of robots, designed to become a human companion, helping people to escape from the loneliness. But the experiments come to a standstill. Ewan McGregor worked on the film together with Léa Seydoux.

Léa has extensive experience on the stage, so in 2018 she was considered as a member of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival. The chairman of the board was Catherine Blanchett. Andrei Zvyagintsev, the Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, the famous American actress Kristen Stewart and others.

The favorites of the competition were the works of Kirill Serebrennikov -Summer, Jean-Luc Godard - The Image Book (Le livre d'image), and Asghar Farhadi - Everybody Knows. The film Shoplifters directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda became the winner of the Palme d'Or.

Now the actress can be called a member of the social elite. In October, Léa visited the Spring Women's Collection fashion show of Louis Vuitton. Other celebrities, such as Nina Dobrev, Isabelle Huppert, Thandie Newton, Sophie Turner, and Alicia Vikander were also among the guests of the event.

Filmography

• 2008 – The Beautiful Person
• 2009 – Inglourious Basterds
• 2010 – Robin Hood
• 2011 – Midnight in Paris
• 2011 – Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
• 2012 – Sister
• 2013 – Blue Is the Warmest Colour
• 2014 – Beauty and the Beast
• 2015 – Spectre
• 2016 – It's Only the End of the World
• 2018 – Zoe