Jean Dujardin

Jean Edmond Dujardin (born 19 June 1972) is a French actor, film director, producer and comedian. His starring role in Hazanavicius' silent movie The Artist, playing actor George Valentin, received widespread acclaim. The role won him numerous awards, including the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild and the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor. He is the first French actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He has also worked notably with director Michel Hazanavicius, starring in his OSS 117 spy parodies. --- Jean Dujardin was born and raised in Rueil-Malmaison, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. After attending high school, he went to work for his parents' construction company. Dujardin began contemplating a career in acting while serving his mandatory military service a few years later. Dujardin began his acting career performing a one-man show he wrote in various bars and cabarets in Paris. He first gained attention when he appeared on the French talent show Graines de star in 1996 as part of the comedy group Nous C Nous, which was formed by members of the Carré blanc theater. From 1999–2003, Dujardin starred in the France production of the originally Canadian comedy series Un gars, une fille, alongside his future wife Alexandra Lamy, before transitioning to a career in film. The TV series charted the path of a relationship; each episode was less than ten minutes long. In 2005, he portrayed the titular surfer in the popular comedic film Brice de Nice and performed on its accompanying soundtrack. In 2006, Dujardin starred as racist, sexist secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath in the comedy OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, a role which earned him an Etoile D'Or Award and a César Award nomination for Best Actor. The film's success spawned a sequel, OSS 117: Lost in Rio. --- French film historian Tim Palmer has analyzed Dujardin's career and rise to success in France, noting how his formative roles were often unredeemable buffoons, very skilful portrayals of childlike men who aggressively and unabashedly reject the responsibilities and compromises of adult life. Dujardin's breakthrough roles as Brice de Nice and OSS 117 exemplified this tendency.