Niels Arestrup | |
|---|---|
 Arestrup at the 2014 César Awards | |
| Born | 8 February 1949 Paris, France |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, film director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Children | 2 |
Niels Arestrup (French pronunciation: [nils aʁestʁyp]; born 8 February 1949) is a French-Danish actor, film director and screenwriter. He has won three César Awards.
Arestrup was born in Paris into a family of modest means; his father was Danish and his mother was Breton.
Arestrup has won three César Awards for Best Supporting Actor for The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet, then Quai d'Orsay. The two first films were directed by Jacques Audiard. He is the most awarded in this category.
In 2017, he won the Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actor in a Play for his work on Acting and in 2019, he won the Molière Award for Best Actor for his work on Red. He was previously nominated in this same category in 2000 for Copenhagen, in 2006 for Letters to a Young Poet and in 2012 for Diplomacy.
Niels Arestrup was ten years old when his father was transferred to Corbeil-Essonnes. The family then moved into a public housing project in Évry, Yonne. Arestrup was a solitary child and begins to skip school. He failed his baccalaureate in 1968 and took on odd jobs. At the same time, he enrolled in a course with Tania Balachova, whom he discovered on television. He began a career in the theater, which he continued while appearing more and more on the small and big screens.
In 2012, after ten years together, Niels Arestrup married the actress, screenwriter and author Isabelle Le Nouvel. The same year, they had twins, a boy and a girl.[1]
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Stavisky | Rudolph | Alain Resnais | |
| Miss O'Gynie et les hommes fleurs | Yves | Samy Pavel | ||
| 1976 | Lumière | Nano | Jeanne Moreau | |
| The Big Night | Léon | Francis Reusser | ||
| I, you, he, she | The driver | Chantal Akerman | ||
| Demain les mômes | Philippe | Jean Pourtalé | ||
| If I Had to Do It All Over Again | Henri Lanot | Claude Lelouch | ||
| 1977 | The Apprentice Sorcerers | Danton | Edgardo Cozarinsky | |
| The More It Goes, the Less It Goes | Vincent | Michel Vianey | ||
| 1978 | The Song of Roland | Oton | Frank Cassenti | |
| 1979 | Memoirs of a French Whore | André | Daniel Duval | |
| La passion d'une femme sans coeur | Karl | Moïse Maatouk | Short | |
| 1980 | The Woman Cop | Dominique Allier | Yves Boisset | |
| 1981 | Seuls | Jean | Francis Reusser | |
| Du blues dans la tête | Dan | Hervé Palud | ||
| 1982 | One Man's War | Narrator | Edgardo Cozarinsky | Documentary |
| 1984 | The Future Is Woman | Gordon | Marco Ferreri | |
| 1985 | Diesel | Nelson | Robert Kramer | |
| Among Wolves | Mike | José Giovanni | ||
| Sincerely Charlotte | Mathieu | Caroline Huppert | ||
| 1986 | Le goûter chez Niels | Niels | Didier Martiny | Short |
| 1987 | La rumba | Commissioner Detaix | Roger Hanin | |
| Charlie Dingo | William | Gilles Béhat | ||
| Barbablù, Barbablù | Gastone | Fabio Carpi | ||
| 1988 | Ville étrangère | Gregor Keuschnig | Didier Goldschmidt | |
| 1989 | Doux amer | Jean | Franck Apprederis | |
| 1991 | Meeting Venus | Zoltan Szanto | István Szabó | |
| 1994 | Délit mineur | Claude | Francis Girod | |
| 1998 | Rewind | Fabrice Rivail | Sergio Gobbi | |
| 2000 | Le pique-nique de Lulu Kreutz | Jascha Steg | Didier Martiny | |
| 2002 | A Private Affair | Monsieur Siprien | Guillaume Nicloux | |
| Speak to Me of Love | Richard | Sophie Marceau | ||
| 2005 | The Beat That My Heart Skipped | Robert Seyr | Jacques Audiard | |
| 2006 | Les fragments d'Antonin | Professor Lantier | Gabriel Le Bomin | |
| 2007 | Le candidat | Georges | Niels Arestrup | |
| La part animale | Henri Chaumier | Sébastien Jaudeau | ||
| The Diving Bell and the Butterfly | Roussin | Julian Schnabel | ||
| 2009 | A Prophet | César Luciani | Jacques Audiard | |
| L'affaire Farewell | Vallier | Christian Carion | ||
| 2010 | Sarah's Key | Jules Dufaure | Gilles Paquet-Brenner | |
| Small World | Thomas Senn | Bruno Chiche | ||
| The Big Picture | Bartholomé | Éric Lartigau | ||
| 2011 | War Horse | Grandfather | Steven Spielberg | |
| You Will Be My Son | Paul de Marseul | Gilles Legrand | ||
| 2012 | Our Children | André Pinget | Joachim Lafosse | |
| 2013 | The French Minister | Claude Maupas | Bertrand Tavernier | |
| 2014 | 96 hours | Victor Kancel | Frédéric Schoendoerffer | |
| The Dune | Reuven | Yossi Aviram | ||
| Diplomacy | Général von Choltitz | Volker Schlöndorff | ||
| 2015 | By the Sea | Michel | Angelina Jolie | |
| Papa lumière | Jacques | Ada Loueilh | ||
| 2017 | Return to Montauk | Walter | Volker Schlöndorff | |
| See You Up There | President Marcel Péricourt | Albert Dupontel | ||
| 2018 | At Eternity's Gate | Madman | Julian Schnabel | |
| 2020 | Villa Caprice | Luc Germon | Bernard Stora | |
| 2023 | Divertimento | Sergiu Celibidache | Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar |
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | La dernière carte | Wilhem Kasda | Marcel Cravenne | TV movie |
| Messieurs les jurés | Jean-Roger Pasquier | André Michel | TV series (1 episode) | |
| 1977 | Thaw | Jean-Luc | Markus Imhoof | TV movie |
| Cinéma 16 | Brandy | Bernard Dubois | TV series (1 episode) | |
| 1978 | Lulu | Schwarz | Marcel Bluwal | TV movie |
| 1979 | Le tourbillon des jours | Germain | Jacques Doniol-Valcroze | TV mini-series |
| 1980 | Bruges la morte | Hugues Viane | Alain Dhénaut | TV movie |
| Le petit théâtre d'Antenne 2 | The client | Jacques Audoir | TV series (1 episode) | |
| 1981 | Les héritiers | Serge | Bruno Gantillon | TV series (1 episode) |
| Mon meilleur Noël | The father | Gabriel Axel | TV series (1 episode) | |
| 1982 | La cerisaie | Lopakhine | Peter Brook | TV movie |
| La danse de mort | Kurt | Claude Chabrol | TV movie | |
| Le retour d'Elisabeth Wolff | Stan Pilgrim | Josée Dayan | TV movie | |
| Les secrets de la princesse de Cadignan | Rastignac | Jacques Deray | TV movie | |
| 1983 | Les poneys sauvages | Ben | Robert Mazoyer | TV mini-series |
| 1984 | Mademoiselle Julie | Jean | Yves-André Hubert | TV movie |
| 1987 | Série noire | Angelo | Daniel Duval | TV series (1 episode) |
| 1988 | La ruelle au clair de lune | Professor Hans Klemm | Édouard Molinaro | TV movie |
| 1989 | Manon Roland | Danton | Édouard Molinaro | TV movie |
| The Post Office Girl | Ferdinand Farner | Édouard Molinaro | TV mini-series | |
| 1991 | La grande dune | Keiser | Bernard Stora | TV movie |
| 1992 | La femme abandonnée | Oskar de Wilno | Édouard Molinaro | TV movie |
| 1993 | Albert Savarus | Albert Savarus | Alexandre Astruc | TV movie |
| 1995 | Les derniers jours de la victime | Mendizabal | Bruno Gantillon | TV movie |
| 2000 | La part de l'ombre | Charles Oberlé | Philippe Venault | TV movie |
| Fernando Krapp m'a écrit cette lettre | Fernando Krapp | Yves di Tullio & Bernard Murat | TV movie | |
| 2002 | Les enquêtes d'Éloïse Rome | Van Rooten | Didier Le Pêcheur | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2006 | Le Rainbow Warrior | The Duke | Pierre Boutron | TV movie |
| 2009 | Suite noire | Gérard | Emmanuelle Bercot | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2016 | Republican Gangsters | Francis Laugier | Ziad Doueiri | TV series (8 episodes) |
| 2017 | Capitaine Marleau | Hervé Gerfaut | Josée Dayan | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2019 | Calls | Adam | Timothée Hochet | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2022 | Black Butterflies | Albert Desiderio | Olivier Abbou | TV series (6 episodes) |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Du blues dans la tête | Writer |
| 2007 | The Candidate | Director and writer |
Movies starring Niels Arestrup with more than a million of entries in France.
| Films | Director | Year | France (entries) | |
| 1 | Memoirs of a French Whore | Daniel Duval | 1979 | 2,764,084 |
| 2 | See You Up There | Albert Dupontel | 2017 | 2,055,669 |
| 3 | The Woman Cop | Yves Boisset | 1980 | 1,807,761 |
| 4 | If I Had to Do It All Over Again | Claude Lelouch | 1976 | 1,312,267 |
| 5 | A Prophet | Jacques Audiard | 2009 | 1,309,269 |
| 6 | The Beat That My Heart Skipped | Jacques Audiard | 2005 | 1,231,156 |
| 7 | The Big Picture | Éric Lartigau | 2010 | 1,196,015 |
| 8 | Among Wolves | José Giovanni | 1985 | 1,047,597 |
| 9 | Stavisky | Alain Resnais | 1974 | 1,017,182 |
