French cinema has just lost one of its greatest talents, an actor of elegance and strange beauty, broke in mid-flight and who could still have evolved into other territories. Victim of a serious skiing accident on Tuesday afternoon in the ski resort of La Rosière (Savoie) when he was not wearing a helmet, actor Gaspard Ulliel died on Wednesday January 19 at the Grenoble University Hospital, a announced his family in a statement sent by his agent to AFP.
The 37-year-old actor had experienced a meteoric rise, marked in particular by two Césars, that of the best male hope (in 2005 for A long engagement Sunday) and Best Actor (in 2017 for Just the end of the world). He had notably played alongside Emmanuelle Béart, Audrey Tautou, Mélanie Laurent, Nicole Garcia, Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet or Gérard Depardieu, and in front of the camera of André Téchiné, Bertrand Bonello or Xavier Dolan.
Born in 1984 in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) from a stylist mother and a designer father, Gaspard Ulliel quickly headed towards an acting career, first in small roles, but alongside Sandrine Bonnaire (the series A woman in white) or Francis Huster (Julien the apprentice). It was Michel Blanc who discovered him and gave him a more important first role in 2002, in Kiss whoever you want, with Jacques Dutronc, Charlotte Rampling and Lou Doillon. His talent earned him a first César nomination as best male hope.
A renewed performance, in The Lost in 2003, by André Téchiné, with Emmanuelle Béart, for which he will obtain a new nomination. The third will be the good one, thanks to A long engagement Sunday, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with Audrey Tautou. It’s the door open to a leading role in The last day, by Rodolphe Marconi. Nicole Garcia, Mélanie Laurent, Alysson Paradis and Christophe Malavoy are his partners, but the film does not meet with the expected success.
Never mind, Gaspard Ulliel is more and more in demand, as by Gus van Sant who makes him turn in one of the fragments of the film with sketches paris I love you (2006). It then opened up to more mainstream films, such as Jacquou the crunchy (2007) by Laurent Boutonnat, with Marie-Josée Croze, Albert Dupontel, Tchéky Karyo and Olivier Gourmet. Adapted from the famous eponymous television series of the 1970s, the film received a mixed critical and public reception.
Several international co-productions call upon him, in particular Hannibal Lecter: The Origins of Evil (2007), which evokes the youth of the famous cannibal, played by Anthony Hopkins in the first two films of the franchise. But he returns to a more confidential vein with A dam against the Pacific (2009) by Rithy Panh, where he plays opposite Isabelle Huppert. Then in a more commercial genre, he is alongside Jean Reno the same year in the action film The First Circle.
Bertrand Tavernier offers him one of his finest roles in The Princess of Montpensier, in 2010, where he plays the Duke of Guise and where he finds Mélanie Thierry, in a film which gathers unanimous criticism. The actor does not cease to turn, in particular in the Saint Laurent by Bertrand Bonello, where he is the great couturier, the film also being acclaimed by critics, but less by the public.
It is the Quebec director Xavier Dolan who finally offers him the role that will allow him to win the César for best actor for his performance in Just the end of the world, where he is surrounded by Nathalie Baye, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel.
We see it the same year in the formidable The dancer, by Stéphanie Di Giusto, on the American choreographer Loïe Fuller whom the singer Soko interprets and where he evolves again alongside Mélanie Thierry. Isabelle Huppert is once again his partner in Eva in 2017, directed by Benoît Jacquot and the same year, he gave the reply to Gérard Depardieu in The ends of the world by Guillaume Nicloux. His last appearances date from 2019, as a member of the jury of the 45th American Film Festival of Deauville, chaired by Catherine Deneuve.
Along with his brilliant acting career, Gaspard Ulliel has been a regular model at the Paris Fashion Week shows. He was also the image ambassador for Chanel’s “Bleu” perfume in an advertisement shot by Martin Scorsese in New York. He also participated in the promotion of Longchamp bags alongside Kate Moss.
Elegant actor, recognized and appreciated by his peers, Gaspard Ulliel confided in the magazine Grazia in 2019 have “realized by putting the roles next to each other that they told a lot of things about my intimate journey, my evolution as a man”.