Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu (UK:, US:, French: [ʒeʁaʁ ɡzavje maʁsɛl dəpaʁdjø]; born 27 December 1948) is a French actor. Considered an icon of French cinema in the same way as Jean Gabin and Alain Delon, he has appeared in over 200 films since 1967, mostly in leading roles. Depardieu has worked with more than 150 film directors, including major filmmakers such as François Truffaut, Ridley Scott, Peter Weir and Bernardo Bertolucci. He is the second highest-grossing actor in the history of French cinema behind Louis de Funès, with roughly 60 of his films selling more than one million admissions in France. He has portrayed numerous well-known historical and fictitious figures including Cyrano de Bergerac, Georges Danton, Christopher Columbus, Jean Valjean, Edmond Dantès and Porthos, as well as Obelix in four of the live action Asterix films. Beyond acting, Depardieu is a film producer, businessman and vineyard owner. He has occasionally directed films and performed as a singer. His body of work includes extensive television productions, several records and, as of 2025, 19 stage plays and 9 books.
Growing up in poverty in Châteauroux, central France, Depardieu experienced a difficult youth and was a juvenile delinquent before settling in Paris, where he became an actor. His breakthrough came in 1974 with the film Going Places, which propelled him to overnight stardom. He quickly established himself as major figure in European cinema and demonstrated his versatility by appearing in a wide variety of films, spanning both mainstream and auteur productions. He has received acclaim for his performances in The Last Metro (1980), where he won the César Award for Best Actor, Police (1985), for which he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, Jean de Florette (1986), and Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), where he won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and his second César Award for Best Actor as well as garnering a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He started a Hollywood career with Green Card (1990), winning a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, and later appeared in several high-budget English-language films, including 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), and Life of Pi (2012).
Besides his acting accolades, Depardieu has garnered many honors, including appointments as a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur and the Ordre national du Mérite. He was granted citizenship of Russia in January 2013 (officially adopted name in Russian: Жерар Ксавие Депардьё, romanized: Zherar Ksavie Depardyo). During the early 2010s, his tax exile in Russia and his support of Vladimir Putin caused controversy in France.
Depardieu was accused of sexual misconduct as early as the 1990s, though this did not develop into formal complaints until the late 2010s. In December 2020, French authorities charged him with rape. Depardieu denied any wrongdoing but a number of controversies since 2020, not limited to the accusations of rape, damaged his popularity in France and abroad, resulting in his being stripped in 2023 of the National Order of Quebec. In May 2025, he was convicted of sexual assault against two women in a separate case. He has appealed against his sentencing.
Early life
Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu was born on 27 December 1948 in Châteauroux, Indre, France, to a working-class, low-income family. He is the third of six children of Anne Jeanne Josèphe (née Marillier), a stay-at-home mother known as "La Lilette", and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu (better known in his neighborhood as "Dédé" because he could write only two letters), a metal worker and volunteer fireman. Not wishing to have another child at the time, Depardieu's mother tried unsuccessfully to abort him.
Depardieu grew up in poverty in a two-room apartment at 39 rue du Maréchal-Joffre, Châteauroux, with his five siblings. His mother was not very affectionate, and sometimes violent to her children. His father, who struggled with a severe alcohol addiction, was often absent from home. Depardieu helped his mother when she was in labor with his younger brothers and sisters. His family eventually nicknamed him "Pétard" or "Pétarou", because of the habit he had acquired of breaking wind incessantly. Depardieu's parents were both born in 1923; Anne died of a heart attack in 1988; René, who suffered from cirrhosis, died two months after her.
Depardieu spent more time on the streets than in school, leaving at the age of 13. Practically illiterate and struggling with a stutter, he learned to read only later. In his 2014 autobiography, Ça s'est fait comme ça, Depardieu revealed that he had prostituted himself as a child, starting when he was 10 years old and could already pass as 15. He would sometimes rob his clients. He was later employed at a printworks, and took part in boxing matches in his spare time. He also supported himself by working as a beach attendant during summers.
During his difficult adolescence, Depardieu turned to theft and smuggling, selling goods like cigarettes and alcohol to the G.I.s at the large American air base of Châteauroux-Déols. He also acted as a bodyguard for two prostitutes who traveled down from Paris on the G.I.s' payday. Depardieu later credited those two women with teaching him about sex. In a 2005 interview, he stated that he was arrested multiple times and put on probation at one point, but never went to prison. He contradicted this in his 2014 autobiography, revealing that he had served three months for car theft at age 16. In 1968, Depardieu's childhood best friend and fellow Châteauroux hoodlum, Jacky Merveille, died in a car accident. This prompted Depardieu—who had relocated to Paris by that time—to reconsider his future and make something of his life.
Early roles and breakthrough
As a teenager, Depardieu befriended Michel Pilorgé, a slightly older boy from a more affluent background. In 1965, Pilorgé, whose family owned a flat in Paris and who planned to settle in the capital to become an actor, invited Depardieu, then 16, to come along. Depardieu accepted and left Châteauroux for Paris. Out of curiosity, he began attending the acting class Pilorgé was taking at the Théâtre National Populaire. One day the teacher, Lucien Arnaud, noticed Depardieu and asked him to perform. The experience helped trigger Depardieu's vocation.
Depardieu next took acting classes with Jean-Laurent Cochet while making a living as a door-to-door salesman. To compensate for his lack of formal education, he studied the classics intensely. At Cochet's request, he underwent therapy with Alfred A. Tomatis to correct his disastrous diction. Depardieu later said that working on theatre texts had taught him to "read and speak".
Depardieu became the boyfriend, and later husband, of actress Élisabeth Guignot, whom he had met at Cochet's class. She introduced him to the Parisian bourgeoisie and entertainment circles, including directors Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda, whose children he occasionally babysat for spare change. In 1966, Guignot also brought him on the first film project he worked on, Christmas Carole, directed by Varda, where he was cast as a beatnik. The film was never completed due to a lack of funding and distribution deal. In 1967, Depardieu made his first actual screen appearance in the short film Le Beatnik et le minet, directed by Roger Leenhardt; his diction was still so bad at the time that his voice had to be dubbed by another actor.
Depardieu's stage work also included performing in café-théâtres. This led him to appear regularly at the Café de la Gare, where he met future onscreen co-stars Patrick Dewaere, Coluche, and Miou-Miou. He quickly earned a reputation for his "instinctive" approach to acting. The first feature film he worked on was Michel Audiard's crime spoof Le Cri du cormoran le soir au-dessus des jonques, released in 1971. That same year, Jean-Louis Livi became his agent and "mentor", introducing him to Artmedia, France's…