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Lambert Wilson

Lambert Wilson’s career has never stayed neatly inside one lane. The French actor, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine on August 3, 1958, has worked across film, television, theatre, music and stage direction, moving between French and English-language projects with unusual ease. That international outlook began early. As a teenager, Wilson was more interested in becoming an American-style screen actor than entering the French theatre world associated with his father, actor and director Georges Wilson. He studied at the Drama Centre London to learn English, then made his film debut in Fred Zinnemann’s Julia in 1977. Zinnemann later gave him his first starring role in Five Days One Summer opposite Sean Connery. After that film and Sahara failed to find commercial success, Wilson established himself at home through French films including La Boum 2, The Public Woman and Rendez-vous. He was frequently cast as either a romantic figure or a tormented man, with Wilson himself considering the darker parts the better fit. His career has included its share of reversals. Wilson received critical attention and the Jean Gabin prize for playing Abbé Pierre in Hiver 54, l’abbé Pierre, but a later run of box-office disappointments damaged his standing with French producers. Successful comedies Same Old Song and Jet Set helped bring audiences back. For many international viewers, Wilson is best known as the Merovingian, the elaborately controlled power broker he plays in The Matrix Revolutions. The performance makes canny use of his poise, theatrical precision and command of English. Even the character’s strong French accent was an invention for the role rather than Wilson’s natural speaking voice. That sense of performance extends well beyond the screen. Wilson has appeared in musical theatre productions including A Little Night Music and Candide, released an album of American musical-theatre songs, and directed stage productions by Alfred de Musset and Jean Racine. It is a varied body of work, but one held together by his comfort with language, formality and characters whose polished surfaces rarely tell the whole story.