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Audrey Tautou

Audrey Justine Tautou (born 9 August, either in 1976 or 1978, is a French film actress, known to worldwide audiences for playing the title character in the award-winning 2001 French film Amélie and Sophie Neveu in the 2006 thriller The Da Vinci Code.

Biography

Early life

Tautou was born in the Puy-de-Dôme département of Auvergne, and was raised in Montluçon in the nearby Allier, still in Auvergne. Her father is a dental surgeon and her mother is a teacher. After the premiere of the film Amélie (for which she received phenomenal amounts of paparazzi and press coverage) she travelled to the jungles of Indonesia to help with the preservation of a monkey sanctuary. Tautou showed an interest in comedy at an early age and started her acting lessons at the Cours Florent. This theatrical institution is highly prestigious and she is one of several famous actors to have passed through its doors (others including Muriel Robin, Daniel Auteuil and Guillaume Canet). Nonetheless, she continued the course and came out at the end and went on to star in some of French cinema's biggest and most famous films.

Career

Tautou has said that Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Juliette Lewis, Jodie Foster and Julianne Moore are her acting idols. In 1998, Tautou participated in a Star Search-like competition sponsored by Canal+ called "Jeunes Premiers" (The Young Debut) and won Best Young Actress at the 9th Béziers Festival of Young Actors. Then, she came to the attention of Tonie Marshall, who gave her a role in the César-winning Venus Beauty Institute (1999, aka Vénus beauté (institut)). In 2000 , she won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti as her country's most promising young film actress.

Already well-known in France for her work in Venus Beauty Institute, in 2001 Tautou rose to international fame for her performance as the eccentric Amélie in the romantic comedy Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. In June 2004 she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). She accepted the invitation and is still a member as of 1 September, 2006.

In 2005, Tautou worked in her first full Hollywood production, opposite Tom Hanks, in the film version of Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard and released in May 2006. She acted alongside Gad Elmaleh in Pierre Salvadori's Hors de prix, released 13 December, 2006. Tautou says she still considers France her base, and plans to pursue a career predominantly there rather than crossing over to the United States. As she told Stevie Wong of The Straits Times, "I am, at the end of the day, a French actress. I am not saying I will never shoot an English-language movie again, but my home, my community, my career is rooted in France. I would never move to Los Angeles".

Tautou starred with Guillaume Canet (best known for his role in the film adaptation of The Beach) in Claude Berri's Ensemble, c'est tout in 2007, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Anna Gavalda.

Tautou is next to star in the upcoming biopic of fashion designer Coco Chanel. Filming is set to start in Paris on 15 September, 2008, and will probably be released in 2009. The project is titled Coco avant Chanel, and is directed by Anne Fontaine. The script of the new movie is partially based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s book “L’Irreguliere” (”The Non-Conformist”). As part of promoting the new Coco Chanel bio film in May 2008, Tautou was named as the next spokesmodel for Chanel No. 5, replacing Nicole Kidman. She will be directed in the advertisement by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with whom she worked on Amélie and A Very Long Engagement. The advertisement will be released in 2009 to coincide with the film's release.

Personal life

Her favourite authors are Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde, Paul Auster, and Timothy Zahn; and her favourite poets are Charles Baudelaire and Tristan Tzara.

Tautou takes pictures of each reporter who interviews her and keeps them in a scrapbook. In France, many consider her as the "typical Occitan Auvergnate". She was brought up attending church, though she has now stated that she is "not officially" a Catholic.

The Brand New song "Tautou", from the album Déjà Entendu is named after her.