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Jean Dujardin is a French actor, director and producer, who started his career as a stand-up comedian in Paris, and rose to fame with his performance as secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath in “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.” Here are 43 facts about the Academy Award winner.
- Dujardin is the first French actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance as George Valentin in the 2011 movie “The Artist.”
- He is the fifth French actor to have won an Oscar in the history, after Claudette Colbert, Simone Signoret, Juliette Binoche and Marion Cotillard.
- He is one of the two actors in the film history to have won the Cannes prize for Best Actor, the SAG Award, the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and the Oscar for a single film.
- He is one of the four male French actors to win a BAFTA Award, for his performance in the movie “The Artist.”
- He has been described as France's answer to George Clooney.
- He has often been compared to the screen legend Jean-Paul Belmondo. He got an opportunity to co-star with the legend in the 2008 movie “A Man and His Dog.”
- He considers Belmondo and Vittorio Gassman as his acting idols.
- French film historian Tim Palmer recognized Dujardin’s importance to French film and analyzed his career in France by noting his formative roles and very skillful portrayals of childlike men.
- Jean Edmond Dujardin was born on June 19, 1972 in Rueil-Malmaison, France, and was raised in the western suburb of Paris.
- He is nicknamed as Jean de la Lune.
- Before starting his acting career, he worked for his father, Jacques Dujardin’s construction company.
- It was a few years later, while serving his mandatory military service that he began contemplating the acting career.
- His first acting performance was a one-man show that he wrote in various bars and cabarets in Paris.
- He gained recognition when he appeared on the French talent show “Graines de star” in 1996 as part of the comedy group Nous Ç Nous. The group was formed by members of the Carré blanc theater.
- He was married to Gaëlle and has two sons - Simon and Jules. Their relationship ended in 2003.
- In the year 1999, he starred as Loulou in the French production of the Canadian comedy series “Un gars, une fille,” alongside Alexandra Lamy. The series ended in 2003, after which he starred in many films.
- He played the role of Brice of Nice/Brice Agostini in the 2005 movie “Brice de Nice,” for which he received the NRJ Ciné Award for Best Look.
- He co-wrote the movie and also received the NRJ Ciné Award for Best Quote.
- He was cast as racist, sexist secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath in the comedy “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” in 2006.
- His performance in the movie earned him an Etoile D'Or Award and a César Award nomination for Best Actor.
- He starred as Octave Parango in the 2007 movie “99 Francs,” which is based on a novel with the same title by Frédéric Beigbeder. He received a payment of €900,000 for portraying the character of Parango.
- He recurred his role as OSS 117 in the 2009 movie “OSS 117: Lost in Rio,” the sequel to “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.”
- He started dating his comedy series “Un gars, une fille,” co-star Lamy and married her in Anduze on July 25, 2009. The relationship did not last long and in November 2013, the duo announced their separation.
- He is an avid reader of “Asterix” and “Lucky Luke” comic books. Interestingly, in the 2009 movie “Lucky Luke,” he played the role of Lucky Luke, for which he was paid a salary of €390,000.
- He reunited with the “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies” director Michel Hazanavicius, and his co-star in the movie Bérénice Bejo, in the 2011 silent film “The Artist.”
- He played the character of George Valentin, which was based on two silent movie stars, Douglas Fairbanks and John Gilbert, who saw their careers decline with the introduction of sound films.
- Recalling the time when he read the script, Dujardin said that “Hazanavicius came to him in 2006 with a script – between takes of ‘OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies’ – and said, “Read this. But don’t laugh. Do you think it’s possible?”
- Hazanavicius wrote the entire script only with Dujardin and Bejo in mind as the leads in the movie “The Artist.”
- During the filming of the movie, Dujardin lived in an isolated 1930s house in the Hollywood Hills.
- He performed every dancing sequence in the movie “The Artist,” by himself, after heavy rehearsals.
- He along with his co-star Bejo rehearsed the climactic dance sequence for five months, practicing almost every day in the same studio that Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly used to rehearse for the 1952 movie “Singin' in the Rain.”
- Regarding his experience while filming the movie “The Artist,” he once said in an interview “For me, I loved it. I only want to make silent movies now.”
- His performance as Valentin garnered much critical acclaim and received numerous awards for Best Actor at the Academy Award, AACTA International Award, BAFTA Award, Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award, Hollywood Film Festival Spotlight Award, Independent Spirit Award, Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award, London Film Critics Circle Award, Phoenix Film Critics Society Award, Santa Barbara International Film Festival Cinema Vanguard Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and the Étoile d'Or Award.
- Seeing his performance in the movie director Francois Truffart told the L.A. Times that “He’s like our George Clooney,” describing that he is like France’s George Clooney.
- Following his success with “The Artist,” he was signed by the WME agency.
- He was one among the 175 individuals invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012.
- He was the co-director, co-writer and co-producer of the movie “Les Infideles,” in which he played the role of Fred/Olivier/François/Laurent/James.
- The posters for the film, in which he is seen gripping a pair of naked female legs, under the caption "I'm going into another meeting," attracted accusations of sexism and The French professional authority of regulation for advertising received four official complaints about the posters accusing the same.
- He was convicted for driving under the influence while on vacation on the Corsica Island, and was ordered to pay a fine of several hundred euros. His driving license was suspended for three months.
- He played the role of Jean Jacques Saurel in the Martin Scorsese’s biographical black comedy film “The Wolf of the Wall Street,” alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, and Kyle Chandler.
- He starred as Moïse in the 2013 movie “Möbius,” with Cécile de France and Tim Roth.
- He is romantically involved with French ice dancer, Nathalie Péchalat. The couple announced on June 27, 2015 that they are expecting their first child.
- He has a number of movies in the pipeline including “Up for Love,” and “Brice de Nice 3,” slated for a release in 2016.
