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Actor

1985-07-01 · Paris, France · Female

8 series in the catalog

Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne (French: [lea sɛdu]; born 1 July 1985) is a French actress. Prolific in both French cinema and Hollywood, she has received five César Award nominations, two Lumière Awards, a Palme d'Or and a BAFTA Award nomination. In 2009, she won the Trophée Chopard Award for Female Revelation of the Year at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2016, Seydoux was honoured with appointment as a Dame of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2022, the French government made her a Dame of the National Order of Merit.

She began her acting career with her film debut in Girlfriends (2006), with early roles in The Last Mistress (2007) and On War (2008). She won acclaim for her French roles in The Beautiful Person (2008), Belle Épine (2010), and Farewell, My Queen (2012). During this time, she expanded her career appearing in supporting roles in high-profile Hollywood films, including Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (2010), Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011) and the action film Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011).

Her breakthrough role came with the controversial and acclaimed film Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) for which she received the Lumière Award for Best Actress, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival along with her co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos and director Abdellatif Kechiche. She received her second Lumière Award within the same year for the film Grand Central. She gained international attention for her role as Bond girl Madeleine Swann in Spectre (2015), and No Time to Die (2021).

She has appeared in the Wes Anderson films The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and The French Dispatch (2021). Other notable roles include Beauty and the Beast (2014), Saint Laurent (2014), The Lobster (2015), Zoe (2018), France (2021), Crimes of the Future (2022), One Fine Morning (2022), The Beast (2023), Dune: Part Two (2024), and the video games Death Stranding (2019) and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025).

Seydoux has also worked as a model. She has been showcased in Vogue Paris, American Vogue, L'Officiel, Another Magazine and W magazine, among others. Since 2016, she has been a brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton.

Early life

Léa Seydoux was born on 1 July 1985, the daughter of businessman Henri Jérôme Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne and philanthropist Valérie Schlumberger. She was born in Passy, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, and grew up in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the 6th arrondissement. She had a strict Protestant upbringing, but she is not religious. Seydoux is one of seven children; her siblings and half-siblings include stylist Camille Seydoux.

Seydoux's parents are both partly of Alsatian descent. The Seydoux family is widely known in France and influential in the movie industry. Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, is the chairman of Pathé; her great-uncle, Nicolas Seydoux, is the chairman of Gaumont; her other great-uncle, Michel Seydoux, also a cinema producer, is the former chairman of the Lille-based football club Lille OSC; and her father is the founder and CEO of the French wireless company Parrot. She has said that her family initially took no interest in her film career and did not help her, and that she and her influential grandfather were not close. As a child, she had no desire to act. She instead wanted to be an opera singer, studying music at the Conservatoire de Paris. Seydoux said: "I had a beautiful voice, but I lost it. I was too shy. I went to the Conservatoire de Paris, and I tried to learn how to properly sing. It was too difficult. You have to do all the breathing exercises. You have to have a very strict regimen".

Seydoux's parents divorced when she was three years old and they were often away, her mother in Africa and her father on business, which, combined with her large family, meant that she "felt lost in the crowd... I was very lonely as a kid. Really, I always had the feeling I was an orphan". Through her family involvement in media and entertainment, Seydoux grew up acquainted with artists such as photographer Nan Goldin, musicians Lou Reed and Mick Jagger and footwear designer Christian Louboutin, who is her godfather. For six years, Seydoux went to summer camp in Maryland, at the behest of her father, who wanted her to learn to speak English.

Her mother Valérie Schlumberger is a former actress-turned-philanthropist and the founder of the boutique Compagnie d'Afrique du Sénégal et de l'Afrique de l'ouest (CSAO), which promotes the work of African artists. Seydoux once worked as a model for their jewellery line Jokko. Schlumberger, who lived in Senegal as a teenager, is also the founder of the charitable organisations Association pour le Sénégal et l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ASAO) and Empire des enfants, a centre for homeless children in Dakar, of which Seydoux is the "godmother".

Seydoux describes her youthful self as short-haired, slightly dishevelled, and viewed as a bit strange: "People liked me, but I always felt like a misfit". Still concerned about her shyness in adulthood, Seydoux has admitted to having had an anxiety crisis during the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, saying: 'I'll never be Sophie Marceau, I'm too weird'. Later, she stated: "In the middle of the Cannes hysteria, I felt fragile and vulnerable. I made this comparison because I'll never be France's "petite fiancée". Sophie Marceau represents anything, while I don't have a definite place. But it's not a problem, it's an observation".

Career

2005–2007: Career beginnings

Seydoux has stated that as a child she wanted to become an opera singer, studying music at the Conservatoire de Paris, but eventually her shyness compelled her to drop the idea. It was not until the age of eighteen that she decided to become an actress. One of her close friends was an actor, and Seydoux has said: "I found his life wonderful, I thought, 'Oh my God, you can travel, you're free, you can do what you want, you're the boss.'" She fell in love with an actor and decided to become an actress to impress him. Years later, Seydoux revealed that this actor was her longtime friend, Louis Garrel. She took acting classes at French drama school Les Enfants Terribles, having Jean-Bernard Feitussi as her close friend and mentor, and in 2007 she took further training at New York's Actors Studio with Corinne Blue.

In 2005, Seydoux appeared in the music video for Raphaël's single, "Ne partons pas fâchés". The following year, she appeared in an award-winning ad for Levi’s jeans created by London-based advertising agency BBH and directed by Ringan Ledwidge, and then played her first major screen role as one of the main characters in Sylvie Ayme's Girlfriends (Mes copines). She starred in Nicolas Klotz's short film La Consolation, which was exhibited at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

In these years, she also did her first work as a model for American Apparel, posing for their Pantytime campaign, and had a role in the films 13 French Street and The Last Mistress.

2008–2012: French cinema and Hollywood expansion

Seydoux came to widespread attention in 2008, when she appeared in Christophe Honoré's The Beautiful Person, a role that earned her the 2009 Chopard Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Best Upcoming Actress and a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress.

In 2009, she had a major part in Jessica Hausner's Lourdes, and a small role in her first Hollywood film, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. In 2010, she starred alongside Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, playing Isabella of Angoulême. That same year, she appeared in Louis Garrel's short-film Petit Tailleur, Rebecca Zlotowski's Belle Épine, which earned her a second César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress, and Raúl Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon. Seydoux auditioned and was one of the four finalists, to play Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but the part ultimately went to actress Rooney Mara. Seydoux…