Marie Gillain was born on 18 June 1975 in the village of Rocourt, close to Liège, in the French speaking region of Belgium. From an early age she showed a keen interest in the world of entertainment and along with her young sister Céline and the children of her village, would dress up and organise small shows in the attic of her home. As a teenager she took part in theatre workshops for young people and was by now dreaming of becoming an actress.
At the age of 14 she saw an advertisement in a Belgian weekly newspaper for the film L’Amant (The Lover) which was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. She decided to send in an audio tape on which she read an extract from a novel by Marguerite Duras, and as a result of this was asked to attend an audition. Unfortunately, she was not selected for the film, the role eventually going to the English actress Jane March. The experience was not wasted because the following year the same casting director contacted her for a major part in what… read more
Marie Gillain was born on 18 June 1975 in the village of Rocourt, close to Liège, in the French speaking region of Belgium. From an early age she showed a keen interest in the world of entertainment and along with her young sister Céline and the children of her village, would dress up and organise small shows in the attic of her home. As a teenager she took part in theatre workshops for young people and was by now dreaming of becoming an actress.
At the age of 14 she saw an advertisement in a Belgian weekly newspaper for the film L’Amant (The Lover) which was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. She decided to send in an audio tape on which she read an extract from a novel by Marguerite Duras, and as a result of this was asked to attend an audition. Unfortunately, she was not selected for the film, the role eventually going to the English actress Jane March. The experience was not wasted because the following year the same casting director contacted her for a major part in what was to become her first feature film Mon Père, Ce Héros. She played the role of Véronique, the teenage daughter of Gérard Depardieu. The film became an international success and was remade by Hollywood a few years later under the English title My Father The Hero. An inferior film to the original, Marie made a wise decision not to appear in the new version, although Gérard Depardieu reprised his role as the father.
Whilst she completed her secondary education at the Saint-Louis College in Liège, Marie continued to make films both for the cinema and television. Her second feature, a Belgian film, was called Marie and this was followed by Un Homme à la Mer (A Man At Sea) directed by Jacques Doillon for French television. She then attended the “École du Cirque” (Circus School) in Brussels for a period of four months where her classes included singing, dancing, drama and acrobatics. During this period she made her third feature film L’Appât (The Bait) which was directed by Bertrand Tavernier, one of the top film makers in France. The film was a critical success and Marie gave one of her best performances to date. In an interview on Belgian television in February 1996 Tavernier described Marie as a sublime actress. They would work together again in 2002 on the film Laissez-Passer (Safe Conduct). Another feature by this director entitled Holy Lola (2004) originally included Marie in the cast, but she had to withdraw from the project when she became pregnant with her first child. —mariegillainonline-uk.com
