MEROVINGIAN

Since graduating from London’s Drama Centre in 1977, Paris-born French actor LAMBERT WILSON has worked extensively in films with acclaimed directors such as Fred Zinneman, who gave Wilson his first starring role in Five Days One Summer opposite Sean Connery. Wilson also worked with Jodie Foster in Claude Chabrol’s The Blood of Others; with director Andre Techine for Rendez-Vous opposite Juliette Binoche; in Andrzej Wajda’s The Possessed; Peter Greenaway’s The Belly of an Architect; Carlos Saura’s El Dorado; James Ivory’s acclaimed Jefferson in Paris; Vera Belmont for both Red Kiss and Marquise; John Duigan’s The Leading Man; Alain Resnais’ Same Old Song; Jacques Doillon’s Trop(peu) d’amour; Deborah Warner’s The Last September; and Raul Ruiz’ Combat d’amour en Songe, among others.

Wilson has been nominated five times for the French Cesar Academy Awards, most recently for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Fabian Onteniente’s 1999 comedy Jetset. He will next be seen in Timeline, directed by Richard Donner, in Alain Resnais' new picture Pas Sur la Bouche with Audrey Tatou, and Colette, a mini-series for French television directed by Nadine Trintignant.

On stage, Wilson has performed in both French and English. He starred in A Little Night Music, directed by Sean Matthias, with Judi Dench for the Royal National Theater in London in 1996, as well as in Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes in 1998. His stage credits include L’Amour de L’Amour, La Machine Infernale, La Celestine, Eurydice and Ruy Blas. Wilson has also directed himself in Musset’s Les Caprices de Marianne, which opened in Peter Brooks’ Theatre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris in 1994, and subsequently toured throughout France. In 2002 he directed Kristen Scott Thomas and performed in Racine’s Berenice at the Avignon Festival and at the Chaillot National Theatre in Paris.

As a singer, Wilson recorded in 1989 an album of songs from the Great American musicals entitled Musicals. The album, released by EMI and produced by John McGlinn, formed the basis of his concert series Lambert Wilson chante at the Casino de Paris and on tour in 1990/91. In 1996 he recorded a collection of classic songs from the golden age of French cinema entitled Demon et Merveilles (Virgin Classics) and opened the new Theatre des Abbesses in Paris in April 1997 with concert performances based on these recordings. The show, eponymously titled Demons et Merveilles, toured France and was presented in Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan during the autumn/winter of 1997.

As a narrator, Wilson has also worked under the direction of some of the world’s greatest conductors including Rostropovitch, Pretre Mazur, Dutoit and Ozawana, in works such as Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien, Berlioz’s Lelio, Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soledat and Schuman’s Manfred. Other recording work includes narrator of Homegger’s Le Roi David, Lelio and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (Welster-Most EMI).