Lambert Wilson
| Lambert Wilson | |
|---|---|
 Lambert Wilson in 2016 | |
| Born |
3 August 1958 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1977–present |
Lambert Wilson (born 3 August 1958) is a French actor. He is internationally known for his portrayal of The Merovingian in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Wilson is the son of Georges Wilson, who was an actor, theatrical manager and director of the Théâtre National Populaire.[1]
Life and career
Wilson screen tested for The Living Daylights (1987) for the role of James Bond, appearing in test footage opposite Maryam d'Abo (the Bond girl in The Living Daylights) as Tatiana Romanova, re-enacting scenes from From Russia with Love (1963). Wilson was featured in a series of Calvin Klein ads featuring Christy Turlington for Eternity in 1991, as well as a poster ad, years later in 1998.
Wilson released Musicals on the EMI label in 1989 (re-issued in 2004), with John McGlinn conducting Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. It features him singing songs of the American Musical Theatre catalogue, those well-known ("Maria" from West Side Story, "There But For You Go I" from Lerner & Loewe's Brigadoon, "The Cafe Song" from Les Misérables, "Johanna" from Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd), rare ("Love Song" from Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner's Love Life, "It Must Be So" from Leonard Bernstein's Candide, and "Silly People", which was cut from Sondheim's A Little Night Music), and those in-between ("Finishing the Hat" from Sunday in the Park with George, "You Do Something to Me" from Cole Porter's Fifty Million Frenchmen, "Never Will I Marry" from Frank Loesser's Greenwillow).
He has directed stage presentations of Alfred de Musset's Les Caprices de Marianne starring Laure Marsac at Paris' Bouffes du Nord as well as Jean Racine's Bérénice starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Didier Sandre at Avignon and then Chaillot.
In November 2012, he was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2012 International Film Festival of Marrakech. In April 2013, Wilson was invited by MINUSTAH (the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) to visit Haiti in the capacity of helping with various UN-backed environment and cultural programmes. He was the master of ceremonies for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
In February 2016, he released a tribute album called Wilson chante Montand to the singer Yves Montand to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of the artist. Among the 17 tracks on the album there is Mais qu’est-ce que j’ai ? which was composed by Henri Betti with the lyrics by Édith Piaf in 1947. The musical arrangements of the 17 songs were made by Bruno Fontaine.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Julia | Walter Franz | Fred Zinnemann | |
| 1978 | Gaston Phébus | Yvain | Bernard Borderie | TV Mini-Series |
| 1979 | Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres | An alien | Jean Girault | |
| New Generation | Jean-Charles | Jean-Pierre Lowf Legoff | ||
| Lady Oscar | Cocky soldier | Jacques Demy | ||
| From Hell to Victory | Umberto Lenzi | |||
| 1980 | Cinéma 16 | Gilbert | Eric Le Hung | |
| Au feu le préfet | Patrick Callaghan | Alain Boudet | TV Movie | |
| L'inconnue d'Arras | The grandfather | Raymond Rouleau | TV Movie | |
| 1981 | Quatre femmes, quatre vies: La maison bleue | Jean-Paul Taillandier | Robert Mazoyer | TV Movie |
| La dernière nuit | The assistant executioner | Didier Decoin | TV Movie | |
| Chanel Solitaire | George Kaczender | |||
| Histoire contemporaine | Henri de Brèce | Michel Boisrond | TV Mini-Series | |
| La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu | Paris | Raymond Rouleau | TV Movie | |
| 1982 | Five Days One Summer | Johann Biari | Fred Zinnemann | |
| La Boum 2 | Félix Maréchal | Claude Pinoteau | ||
| 1983 | Sahara | Jaffar | Andrew V. McLaglen | |
| La caravane | Éric | Roger Gillioz | TV Movie | |
| 1984 | The Blood of Others | Paul | Claude Chabrol | |
| The Public Woman | Milan Mliska | Andrzej Żuławski | Nominated - César Award for Best Supporting Actor | |
| 1985 | Rendez-vous | Quentin | André Téchiné | Nominated - César Award for Best Actor |
| L'Homme aux yeux d'argent | Villain | Pierre Granier-Deferre | ||
| Red Kiss | Stéphane | Véra Belmont | ||
| Abandons | Pierre-Jean de San Bartolomé | Short | ||
| 1986 | Bleu comme l'enfer | Ned | Yves Boisset | |
| Corps et biens | Michel Sauvage | Benoît Jacquot | ||
| La Storia | Carlo Vivaldi / Davide Segre | Luigi Comencini | TV Movie | |
| La forêt noire | Béatrice Jalbert | Short | ||
| 1987 | The Belly of an Architect | Caspasian Speckler | Peter Greenaway | |
| 1988 | The Possessed | Nikolaj Stavrogin | Andrzej Wajda | |
| Chouans! | Tarquin | Philippe de Broca | ||
| El Dorado | Pedro de Ursúa | Carlos Saura | ||
| Margot et le voleur d'enfants | Michèle Reiser | Short | ||
| 1989 | La vouivre | Arsène Muselier | Georges Wilson | |
| Suivez cet avion | Rémi Cerneaux | Patrice Ambard | ||
| Hiver 54, l'abbé Pierre | Abbé Pierre | Denis Amar | Nominated - César Award for Best Actor | |
| 1991 | Un homme et deux femmes | Dr. Paul Baudoin | Valérie Stroh | |
| Shuttlecock | John Prentis | Andrew Piddington | ||
| 1992 | Strangers | The Guy | Joan Tewkesbury | TV Movie |
| Warsaw - Year 5703 | Alek | Janusz Kijowski | ||
| Frankenstein | Clerval | David Wickes | TV Movie | |
| 1993 | L'instinct de l'ange | Henry | Richard Dembo | |
| 1994 | Une qui promet | Ferdinand | Marianne Lamour | TV Movie |
| Les caprices de Marianne | Octave | Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe | TV Movie | |
| Rage and Outrage: The Dreyfus Affair | Raoul Sangla | TV Movie | ||
| 1995 | Jefferson in Paris | Marquis de Lafayette | James Ivory | |
| Pour une vie ou deux | Noël Gregorio | Marc Angelo | TV Movie | |
| 1996 | Les caprices d'un fleuve | Monsieur de la Malène | Bernard Giraudeau | |
| Le secret d'Iris | Pierrot | Élisabeth Rappeneau | TV Movie | |
| The Leading Man | Felix Webb | John Duigan | ||
| 1997 | Marquise | Racine | Véra Belmont | |
| Same Old Song | Marc Duveyrier | Alain Resnais | Nominated - César Award for Best Supporting Actor | |
| Quand le chat sourit | Sabine Azéma | TV Movie | ||
| 1998 | Too Much (Little) Love | Paul | Jacques Doillon | |
| 1999 | The Last September | Hugo Montmorency | Deborah Warner | |
| 2000 | Don Quixote | Duke | Peter Yates | TV Movie |
| Jet Set | Arthus de Poulignac | Fabien Onteniente | Nominated - César Award for Best Supporting Actor | |
| Combat d'amour en songe | Sebatol | Raúl Ruiz | ||
| Les globulyss | Voice | TV Series | ||
| 2001 | HS - hors service | Francis | Jean-Paul Lilienfeld | |
| Far from China | Jean-Pierre | C.S. Leigh | ||
| Le divin enfant | Father Marc Aubray | Stéphane Clavier | TV Movie | |
| 2002 | Les tombales | Joseph | Christophe Barratier | Short |
| 2003 | It's Easier for a Camel... | Aurelio | Valeria Bruni Tedeschi | |
| The Matrix Reloaded | Merovingian | The Wachowskis | ||
| Enter the Matrix | Merovingian's voice | The Wachowskis | Video Game | |
| Dédales | Brennac | René Manzor | ||
| The Matrix Revolutions | Merovingian | The Wachowskis (3) | ||
| Timeline | Lord Arnaut | Richard Donner | ||
| Not on the Lips | Eric Thomson | Alain Resnais | ||
| 2004 | Colette, une femme libre | Henry de Jouvenel | Nadine Trintignant | TV Mini-Series |
| People | Brother Arthus | Fabien Onteniente | ||
| Catwoman | George Hedare | Pitof | ||
| 2005 | The Matrix Online | Merovingian's voice | The Wachowskis (4) Nathan Hendrickson |
Video Game |
| Sahara | Yves Massarde | Breck Eisner | ||
| Mort à l'écran | Daniel Brullmann | Alexis Ferrebeuf | Short | |
| Gentille | Philippe | Sophie Fillières | ||
| L'anniversaire | Raphaël | Diane Kurys | ||
| Palais royal! | Prince Arnaud | Valérie Lemercier | ||
| 2006 | Private Fears in Public Places | Dan | Alain Resnais (3) | Nominated - Prix Lumière for Best Actor |
| 2007 | Flawless | Finch | Michael Radford | |
| Tous à l'Ouest: Une aventure de Lucky Luke | Lucky Luke's voice | Olivier Jean-Marie | ||
| 2008 | Dante 01 | Saint-Georges | Marc Caro | |
| The Great Alibi | Pierre Collier | Pascal Bonitzer | ||
| Comme les autres | Emmanuel François Xavier Bernier | Vincent Garenq | ||
| Babylon A.D. | Dr. Arthur Darquandier | Mathieu Kassovitz | ||
| The Lazarus Project | Avery | John Glenn | ||
| 2009 | The Philanthropist | Yves Moehringer | Duane Clark | TV Series (1 Episode) |
| Victor | Jérôme Courcelle | Thomas Gilou | ||
| 2010 | Imogène McCarthery | Samuel Tyler | Alexandre Charlot Franck Magnier |
|
| The Princess of Montpensier | François de Chabannes | Bertrand Tavernier | ||
| Of Gods and Men | Christian | Xavier Beauvois | Nominated - César Award for Best Actor | |
| 2012 | À l'aveugle | Narvik | Xavier Palud | |
| Sur la piste du Marsupilami | General Pochero | Alain Chabat | ||
| You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet | Lambert Wilson | Alain Resnais (4) | ||
| Ernest & Celestine | Ernest | Stéphane Aubier Vincent Patar Benjamin Renner |
Voice role | |
| The Hollow Crown | Charles, King of France | Thea Sharrock | TV Mini-Series (1 Episode) | |
| 2013 | Cycling with Moliere | Gauthier Valence | Philippe Le Guay | |
| Manipulations | Franck Barrot | Laurent Herbiet | TV Movie Nominated - Monte-Carlo Television Festival - Best Performance by an Actor | |
| ReWined | The Professor | Ferdinando Vicentini Orgnani | ||
| 2014 | Barbecue | Antoine Chevalier | Éric Lavaine | |
| 5 to 7 | Valery | Victor Levin | ||
| The Nostalgist | The Man | Giacomo Cimini | Short | |
| Posthumous | Daniel S. Volpe | Lulu Wang | ||
| 2015 | Suite Française | Viscount de Montmort | Saul Dibb | |
| Sins of a Father | Andrew Piddington | |||
| Rabid Dogs | The Father | Éric Hannezo | ||
| 2016 | The Odyssey | Jacques-Yves Cousteau | Jérôme Salle | |
| La Vache | Philippe | Mohamed Hamidi | ||
| The Jungle Book | Baloo | Jon Favreau | French voice | |
| Tout de suite maintenant | Barsac | Pascal Bonitzer | ||
| The Confessions | Roché's lover | Roberto Andò | ||
| 2017 | Telle mère, telle fille | Noémie Saglio | ||
| Corporate | Nicolas Silhol |
References
- ↑ Lambert Wilson profile, filmreference.com; accessed June 22, 2015.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lambert Wilson. |