Vincent Cassel

Vincent Cassel (born Vincent Crochon, 23 November 1966) is a Cesar Award-winning French actor best known to English-speaking audiences through his film performances in Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen, as well as Black Swan. Cassel is also renowned for playing the infamous French bank-robber and folk hero, Jacques Mesrine in Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy Number One. Early life and family Cassel was born Vincent Crochon on 23 November 1966 in Paris, France, to Sabine Litique, and French actor Jean-Pierre Cassel (born Jean-Pierre Crochon). Cassel's brother, Mathias, is a rapper with the group Assassin under the name "Rockin' Squat". His half-sister, Cécile Cassel, is an actress. Career Cassel's breakthrough role was in Mathieu Kassovitz's critically acclaimed film La Haine where he played a troubled youth from the deprived outskirts of Paris. He has gone on to act in a variety of films such as the moody L'Appartement (with Monica Bellucci before they married), the violent Dobermann, the genre-bending Le Pacte des Loups (in English, Brotherhood of the Wolf), and the highly controversial Irréversible, where he appears fully nude (with Monica Bellucci after they married). Cassel has also done a number of English-language films, such as Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen, Derailed, Birthday Girl, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, Elizabeth, Eastern Promises, and Shrek (as the voice of Monsieur Hood), and in the Portuguese-language, Brazilian filmAdrift (À Deriva). In 2006, he appeared in Sheitan, in which he played a shepherd who carries out satanic rituals. In 2008, he appeared in two movies about Jacques Mesrine, who was France's "public enemy number one" in the seventies. Cassel received the 2009 Cesar award for best actor for his performance in Mesrine directed by Jean-Francois Richet. An early appearance on British television was as Nicole's boyfriend in the 1994 Renault Clio advert which was used in the UK. Personal life Cassel met Italian actress Monica Bellucci on the set of their 1996 film The Apartment. They married in 1999, and have two daughters, Deva (born 12 September 2004) and Léonie (born 21 May 2010). Cassel and Bellucci announced their separation in August 2013. Cassel has a passion for Capoeira and displayed his talent in the movie Ocean's Twelve. Besides his native French, Cassel speaks English, Portuguese, Italian and basic conversational Russian which he learned for his role in Eastern Promises.