Mélanie Laurent (French pronunciation: [melani loʁɑ̃] ; born 21 February 1983) is a French actress, filmmaker, and singer. She has received two César Awards and a Lumière Award. Internationally, Laurent is known for her roles in Inglourious Basterds (2009), Now You See Me (2013), Operation Finale (2018) 6 Underground (2019) and Fauda season 5 (2026)
Laurent began acting at age sixteen, cast by Gérard Depardieu in a small role in the romantic drama The Bridge (1999). She gained wider recognition for her supporting work in several French films, including the comedy Dikkenek (2006), for which she won Étoiles d'Or for Best Female Newcomer. Her breakthrough role came in the 2006 drama film Don't Worry, I'm Fine, for which she won the César Award for Most Promising Actress and the Prix Romy Schneider. Laurent made her Hollywood debut in 2009 with the role of Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino's blockbuster war film Inglourious Basterds. Her performance won the Online Film Critics Society and the Austin Film Critics Association Best Actress Awards.
While she has worked mainly in independent films, including Paris (2008) and Enemy (2013), Laurent also appeared in commercially successful international films, including the comedy drama Beginners (2011), and the caper film Now You See Me (2013), the former earning her a nomination at the San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her other notable works include the art-house drama The Round Up (2010), the comedy drama The Day I Saw Your Heart (2011), and the mystery thriller Night Train to Lisbon (2013). She is also known for voicing Mary Katherine and Disgust in the French dubs of Epic (2013) and Inside Out (2015) respectively. Additionally, she starred in Chris Weitz's 2018 drama Operation Finale, telling the story of the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann.
In addition to her film career, Laurent has appeared in stage productions in France. She made her theatre debut in 2010 in Nicolas Bedos's Promenade de santé. The short film De moins en moins (2008) marked her debut as a filmmaker. Her feature film directorial debut is The Adopted (2011). Respire (2014), her second production as a director, was screened in the Critics' Week section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. She made her singing debut with a studio album En t'attendant (Waiting For You) in 2011.
Laurent was born on 21 February 1983 in Paris, France the daughter of Annick (a ballerina) and Pierre Laurent (a voiceover actor, who dubs the character Ned Flanders in the French version of The Simpsons). Her father is from Nancy and her mother is Jewish, of both Ashkenazi Jewish (Polish-Jewish) and Sephardic Jewish (Tunisian-Jewish) descent. Her grandfather was deported from Poland during the Nazi occupation, but survived. Her maternal grandparents were film poster editors.
She grew up in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.
Laurent visited the set of Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar with her friend and the latter's father. Actor Gérard Depardieu, seeing Laurent there, asked her if she wanted to be in films. Laurent replied, "Why not?". He strongly advised her not to take acting classes because he believed she already had the necessary skills. When Laurent was 16, Depardieu gave her a part in The Bridge, a drama he starred in and co-directed with Frédéric Auburtin. Laurent played the role of Lisbeth Daboval, the daughter of one of the protagonists of the film, Claire Daboval. Laurent also worked as a voiceover actor, dubbing the character Satsuki in the French version of My Neighbour Totoro, as well as the younger version of Madame de Fleurville in an animated adaptation of Sophie's Misfortunes.
2006–2008: debut and early success
Laurent played minor roles in a number of films early in her career. She appeared in Michel Blanc's drama Summer Things, Jackie Chan's comedy-drama Rice Rhapsody, Jacques Audiard's drama The Beat That My Heart Skipped and the war film Days of Glory about the Free French Forces.
Laurent's breakthrough role came in 2006, when she played a sullen 19-year-old who longed for her lost twin brother, in Philippe Lioret's Don't Worry, I'm Fine. She won a César Award for Most Promising Actress for her performance. In a review for Variety, Ronnie Scheib praised Laurent and wrote that she, "makes her vibrant character's downward spiral totally believable without indulging in moody sullenness". That same year, she and Belgian actor Jérémie Renier were awarded France's Romy Schneider and Jean Gabin Prizes for most promising actor and actress. Laurent then starred in the Franco-Belgian Dikkenek, a comedy directed by Olivier Van Hoofstadt that has attained a cult film over the years owing to its Belgian-style humour, in which she co-starred alongside Marion Cotillard, Jérémie Renier, Jean-Luc Couchard and Dominique Pinon. For her performance in the film, Laurent won the Étoiles d'Or for Best Female Newcomer.
In 2007, Laurent appeared in films including Le tueur and Hidden Love. She was nominated for the Lumière Award for Best Actress for her performance in La Chambre des morts. Laurent next appeared in Cédric Klapisch's 2008 comedy drama Paris, a French film concerning a diverse group of people. The film has an ensemble cast including Laurent, Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini, and François Cluzet. The film was well received and praised for the cast's performances.
2009–2010: Hollywood debut and breakthrough
Laurent was scheduled to direct her first play, Mi-cuit cœur pistache (the name of a dessert she particularly likes) in January 2009 at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris. She had to abandon the project when she was cast as Shosanna Dreyfus, a Parisian who seeks revenge on Nazis in the Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds, alongside Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger and Christoph Waltz. It was a French-language role for which she learned to speak English for a few scenes. The film was a big commercial and critical success, grossing over $321 million in theaters worldwide. Laurent's performance was praised by several critics. Kyle Buchanan of Movieline wrote: "Mélanie Laurent provides Inglourious Basterds its heart and soul. It falls to the 26-year-old French actress to anchor some of the World War II film's most challenging scenes as Shosanna."
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Laurent should have received the nomination at the 16th Screen Actors Guild Awards saying, "In drawing attention to one performer, in particular, whom they left out of the Best Supporting Actress category, [...] I flat-out adore this performance and I suspect that many others do too," and further lauding Laurent's performance he added, "[Laurent] is radiant and, in a unique Tarantino way, heartbreaking. Sexy and luminous in the heat of her valor. Putting out fire – and setting it. It becomes an anthem of noirish dread and excitement, a sign that Laurent, as Shosanna, has found her destiny."
In an interview, Laurent stated that she went into Inglourious Basterds with adoration for Quentin Tarantino. "[The French] don't see him like an independent director; we just see him as the best director, ever, [from the United States]." About the process of auditioning, Laurent said that she knew right from the start that this was a film she had to be in, as she felt a connection to her role in the film, because of the history of her Jewish family.
In addition, Laurent won a number of accolades for her portrayal of Shosanna including Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress, and nominations at the Detroit Film Critics Society Awards, Empire Award for Best Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress among others. The highly anticipated film, which had been in development since 1998, marked Laurent's first major role in an American film and Laurent found herself pushed into mainstream success in North America.
Laurent's partner Julien Boisselier, as well as Marie Denarnaud, Mélanie Doutey, and Louise Monot were to act in the production while short film clips were to be projected on stage, some of them shot at the nightclub Le Baron, which Laurent used to frequent during the writing period.