Audrey Justine Tautou is a French actress and model. She rose to international fame with her portrayal of a shy, eccentric waitress in the romantic comedy, Amelie, which won her several awards and accolades. She is also known for being in films such as The Da Vinci Code, Coco Before Chanel, Mood Indigo, A Very Long Engagement, Priceless, Delicacy, Hunting and Gathering.
Background
Audrey Tautou was born on August 9, 1978, in Beaumont, France, and raised in rural Montlucon. She is a daughter of a dental surgeon Bernard Tautou and a teacher Eveline Tautou. She has three younger siblings: brother Aurélien Tautou, and sisters Tifenn Tautou, Bathilde Tautou.
The young Tautou was very interested in monkeys and spent her childhood dreaming of becoming a primatologist, but as she grew older, her mother told Steven Rea in the Courier-Mail, she was "more interested in being the monkey, rather than taking care of them." She became interested in theater and performing, acting out the lives of others.
Education
Audrey Tautou attended Middle School Jules Ferry. She studied at the Catholic University of Paris. Her parents sent her on a summer course at the renowned Cours Florent theatre school in Paris as a reward for passing her baccalaureate with honors.
The young Tautou, however, was more interested in painting and drawing, subjects her parents doubted would lead to gainful employment. Instead, she was encouraged to study literature at the Sorbonne.
Career
When she was 17, Tautou took an acting course at Cours Florent in Paris. At first, she was intimidated by the city, and particularly by the huge number of other aspiring actresses, all of whom seemed to be taller and more beautiful than she was. However, a friend pointed out that this was because she was living on the same block as the Elite modeling agency. In 1998, Tautou won the Best Young Actress award in the ninth Jeune Comedien de Cinema Festival, held in Bezier, France, for her work in the film Vieille barrière. Director Tonie Marshall noted the award and, impressed by the young actress, gave her a role in her 1999 film Vénus beauté (institut). At first, Tautou thought the director had dialed the wrong number when Marshall called the actress to offer her the role. In the film, Tautou played an impressionable hairstylist who falls in love with a much older man. She won a Cesar award for Most Promising Actress, the French equivalent of the American Academy Award, for her work in the film.
Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was impressed by Tautou's performance in Vénus beauté (institut), as well as by her fairylike appearance. Although Jeunet originally wanted English actress Emily Watson for his new film Amélie, Watson refused the role for unspecified reasons. Casting about for another actress, Jeunet noticed Tautou's face on a billboard advertising Vénus beauté (institut), and decided she was right for the role. He told the Courier-Mail 's Rea, "She was amazing during the [screen] test, exactly like she is in the film. It wasn't necessary to direct her."
In Amélie, Tautou played the title character, a Montmartre waitress who finds an old box of childhood treasures hidden under the floorboards of her apartment. She returns the box to its original owner and observes from a distance as his life is changed by the reunion with his beloved belongings. Struck by this transformation, Amélie comes up with more plans to change other people's lives through quirky actions and gifts, always done anonymously; most of the changes are positive if the people deserve it, and a few are negative - also well-deserved. All is well until she meets a man, Nino, and eventually realizes she must transform her own life in the same way she has altered those of other people.
In Movie City News, a reporter quoted film critic Roger Ebert, who called the film "a delicious pastry of a movie, a lighthearted fantasy in which a winsome heroine overcomes a sad childhood and grows up to bring cheer to the needful and joy to herself." He described Tautou as "a fresh-faced waif who looks like she knows a secret and can't keep it." Tautou had little dialogue in the film, but this did not prevent her from being deeply expressive in the role. As Paul Fischer wrote at Dealmemo.com, "One of the many unique facets of the film is watching Tautou's visual expressiveness. With relatively minimal dialogue, the actress speaks with her face. It's an intricate, delicate performance." Tautou explained to Fischer, "When I play a character, I try to feel the same kinds of feelings as the character, depending on her different situations. And so, those feelings come via my face." She credited the director for the film's artistry; she told Fischer, "To me, Jean-Pierre is a genius. The only thing I gave for this role was my face and voice, because his universe is so precise and so extraordinary." She also joked to Fischer that the role was uncomplicated because she did not have much dialogue: "It was easier because I don't have to learn as many lines."
In the film, Jeunet paired Tautou with Mathieu Kassovitz as Nino. Kassovitz is a French actor who had also received a Cesar award for Most Promising Actor. Jeunet told the Courier-Mail 's Rea that the two actors had "beautiful chemistry" and audiences seemed to agree, packing movie houses and bringing in more than $78 million between April and December of 2001. At the Edinburgh and Toronto Film Festivals, the movie won the People's Choice Award and was considered a potential contender for Best Foreign Film in that year's Academy Awards in the United States, although ultimately it did not win that honor. Moviegoers, however, showed their love for the film, as the real-life Montmartre cafe where Tautou's fictional character supposedly worked was mobbed by customers; so was a spice shop featured in the film. "People come into the cafe," Tautou told the Courier-Mail 's Rea. "They take pictures, they take pictures with the owner, some people even steal menus for souvenirs."
As a result of the film's success, Tautou found that she could no longer walk down the street without being recognized by fans. She jokingly told a People reporter that she realized she had made it big when she was in line at the airport: "The hostess was very nasty. When she saw me, she had this face as if she was watching the Virgin Mary." However, she told the Courier-Mail 's Rea that she understood why the film had made such an impact on viewers: "It's a film that makes people happy and we all need happiness in our lives, especially now." Interestingly, despite her sudden fame, Tautou has not been badgered by the press as much as she might have been in other countries. This is because French law requires that before publishing a photograph, the photographer must have the approval of its subject. Tautou told Carlo Cavagna of Aboutfilm.com, "It lets the paparazzi take the picture, but if they publish this picture, you have the choice to sue the newspaper. So me, I always sued them."
Tautou subsequently appeared in several films, including God is Great, I'm Not, He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not, and The Spanish Apartment, as well as four others. In Dirty Pretty Things, directed by Stephen Frears. Tautou played Senay, a young Turkish woman who is in England illegally, and who is struggling to make ends meet by working in a hotel. Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor played Okwe, a Nigerian illegal immigrant, who drives a cab when he is not working as an overnight clerk in the hotel. Together, they witness the criminal activity of their corrupt boss, who rents out empty hotel rooms for illegal activities; because they fear being deported, they keep quiet about this until his schemes threaten their lives.
For the role, Tautou not only had to learn to speak English, but also had to learn to speak it with a Turkish accent as well as to hide her French accent. She told the Movie City News, "It took an enormous amount of work. As part of my preparations, I asked to meet some Turkish women, so I could learn the rhythms of their speech." Her speech coach, Penny Dyer, taped the conversations with these women and played them over and over. After this, they went over the entire script, highlighting every vowel and consonant with different colored markers, so that Tautou would know how to pronounce them. She noted, "The most difficult thing for me was not knowing if I was saying something right, or not, because I knew so little English to begin with." Tautou spent only three weeks preparing for the role, rehearsing each scene shortly before it was filmed. She also commented that because of her success in the role, as well as her dark hair and eyes, many observers of her work think she has a non - French ethnic origin, that she might be part - Turkish, or that she "could be from North Africa or parts of Asia, or Italy and Spain," she told Movie City News. "But, as far as I know, I'm 100-percent French."
Part of Tautou's success in the role of Senay may have come from her compassion for people like her character. She told Aboutfilm.com 's Cavagna, "When you don't have any identity, any money, any passport, any work, you are nothing. There's many people who sleep on sidewalks and in their countries they were doctors, lawyers. This is very common." As an example, she cited the life of one of the cast members in the film, a woman who had been an actress in her home country and who came to London 20 years ago. Despite her acting background, she worked as a cleaning person for two decades until she got the chance to act again in Dirty Pretty Things.
Tautou teamed with director Jeunet again to produce A Very Long Engagement. The film, produced in France, included a role played by American actress Jodie Foster, who speaks French in the film. Tautou stars as Mathilde Donnay, a stubborn young woman who sets out to find out the truth about her soldier fiance, who disappeared at the end of World War I. A Very Long Engagement was scheduled for release in 2004.
Although Tautou did not rule out working in the United States on American films, she admitted to having turned down several offers from Hollywood. She told Aboutfilm.com 's Cavagna, "When you don't speak English, you need to be brave to do a movie in English, because you think, 'Why I am going to do a movie in a foreign language? I'm going to [stink]. Where is the interest?'" In addition, according to a profile at Internet Movie Database, Tautou noted that she would be choosy about accepting such roles if she ever did take one, accepting only those that met her standards: "I certainly don't want to be in Thingy Blah Blah 3, if you know what I mean." She told Aboutfilm.com 's Cavagna that she wasn't interested in her life as a career in the material sense and that the American movie scene tended to overemphasize money: "You don't need to earn 20 million dollars. But, I think that if you do an American movie it's important to earn some money, but in a stupid way, to be respected." For herself, she said, "I'm interested in this work only because of the meaning I can make. After each experience, you grow up, you get enriched and you don't know how you're going to be in six months, you don't know what you're going to want, what you're going to need."
Religion
Audrey Tautou has stated that she is "not officially" Catholic. She once said "I believe in God, but I am not sure to trust Him so much." She also said, that "all religions have great ideas, but believing in God is not enough to make you good."
Politics
Tautou doesn’t talk much about politics. She wants to keep her private life private.
She doesn't get into politics, but her fame often has her running in circles with France's politicians. She was invited to a private screening of her hit film, Amelie, by the former French president, Jacques Chirac, and wasn’t originally going to attend so her friend informed the president that she was in Portugal. When she did eventually show up, the President said he thought she was in Portugal, to which she replied:
"You’ll have to check your sources."
Tautou seems to be her own person, so to say that she’s non-political doesn’t seem right. More than likely, she’s quite passionate, just not willing to garner that kind of attention.
Views
Audrey Tautou is very reserved and does not like to talk about her personal life.
Quotations:
"I understand that we cannot make other people happy when they are unhappy."
"I never want to do the same things twice. I like surprises."
"It might seem paradoxical given my profession, but I'm not someone who likes to be in the limelight."
"I'm not sure I'm quite ready to have someone be a prospector of jobs for me, because I believe there's some kind of destiny involved with meeting people... some things are just meant to happen."
"I am not super-attached to my career."
"I am always surprised to be chosen by a director for a role because I never understand why they like me."
"I think for everybody celebrity, fame, is a dream. People see it as a blessing."
"I have several plan Bs: I want to become a sailor; I like to draw; I would love to learn many things, but I don't have time."
"I think that when you have that really strong desire to work with someone it's because, instinctively, you feel you have a certain kinship."
"You are supposed to have a dream of walking the red carpet. But I'm really not like that. Because fame is... I don't think it is something interesting or precious."
"Art - be it painting, sculpture, music - they are all creations, they are creative acts. I consider a film, with everything that is involved in it, an art."
"To have a personal life is the minimum freedom you have to give to a human being."
Membership
Audrey Tautou was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in June 2004. She is now a member.
Personality
Audrey Tautou is considered a fashionista for her impeccable dressing sense.
She said that Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Juliette Lewis, Jodie Foster, and Julianne Moore are her idols.
Her favorite movies are Barry Lyndon (1975) and À bout de souffle (1960).
She takes pictures of her interviewers and puts them in a scrapbook.
She was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history #62 (2007).
Physical Characteristics:
Height: 5′ 3″ (160 cm)
Weight: 106 lbs (48 kg)
Eye Color: Dark Brown
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Audrey Tautou was ranked #29 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World" (2002).