Virginie Efira Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actress , Associate producer
Belgian nationality
Birth May 5, 1977 (Brussels – Belgium)

BIOGRAPHY
First a theater actress then a television presenter in Belgium, Virginie Efira came to work in France, where she presented reality and entertainment TV shows, including La Nouvelle Star in prime time. She left television in 2008 to devote herself to acting, which she approached through dubbing: for the animated film Robots , then for Garfield and Garfield 2 , in which she was the French voice of Jennifer Love Hewitt . Virginie Efira maintains a certain attachment to dubbing since she also participated in Max & Co in 2008.

Television also allowed her to cut her teeth with a first TV film Un amour de Phantom (2006), the story of a model who bought a house in the countryside which turned out to be haunted by the ghost of a singer from the 70s. The following year, the young actress launched into Off Prime , a TV series which presented “the almost real life of Virginie Efira” . After two seasons, the series mainly scripted by Simon Astier stopped, due to lack of satisfactory audiences for the channel.

She finally appeared in a feature film for a small role in 2010 in Les Barons , directed by Nabil Ben Yadir , then played with her “bimbo” image to play a not-so-stupid jug in the comedy Le Siffleur with François Berléand and Thierry Lhermitte . She then headlined two sentimental comedies: Love is better for two , which shows her disconcerted by a Clovis Cornillac who only believes in great love, then in La Chance de ma vie , where she experiences thwarted love affairs with François-Xavier Demaison .

After playing in the theater an adaptation of Nathalie… by Anne Fontaine , she returned to the world of the filmmaker with My Worst Nightmare (2011), alongside Benoît Poelvoorde and Isabelle Huppert . She then made an appearance in her own role in Hénaut President by Michel Muller before playing Alice Taglioni ‘s sister in Cookie by Léa Fazer . The actress is comfortable in comedy and shows it once again with a 20-year gap (2013),

Also in 2013 – a year in which the actress was very present on screens – Virginie Efira voiced one of the main characters in Hotel Transylvania and rubbed shoulders with several cinema monsters: François Berléand ( Dead Man Talking ), Gérard Depardieu ( Les ​​Invincibles ) and finally François Cluzet ( En Solitaire ).

We will have to wait until 2015 to see Virginie Efira in the cinema again. In the romantic comedy Caprice by and with Emmanuel Mouret , she plays a theater actress making the facetious director’s head spin. Still in the comedy register, Virginie plays opposite her compatriot Benoït Poelvoorde in A Family for Rent where she plays a young woman “lending” her family in order to pay off their debts.

After the romantic comedies The Taste of Wonders and A Man to Live Up to with Jean Dujardin , the actress starred under the direction of Paul Verhoeven in Elle , alongside Isabelle Huppert . Much in demand, Virginie then distinguished herself in Victoria . She plays a criminal lawyer in complete sentimental nothingness. This role earned her her first nomination for the César for Best Actress in 2017.

After a short tour of the TV box in season 2 of Dix Pour Cent , Virginie Efira shines in the drama Un Amour impossible , adapted from the novel by Christine Angot . She plays Rachel, a single mother who will struggle to raise her daughter. The artist then triumphed in one of the great successes of the year 2018, Le Grand bain , in which she trains a group of broken arms in synchronized swimming. These two feature films earned her a César nomination for best actress and best supporting actress respectively, showing the extent of her acting range and her versatility.

The following year, the actress climbed the steps of the Cannes Film Festival alongside Adèle Exarchopoulos with Sybil , which allowed her to reunite with Justine Triet . She plays a novelist converted into a psychoanalyst. After wearing the uniform with Omar Sy in Police , she toured under the direction of Albert Dupontel – to whom she also starred – in the burlesque and lyric Adieu les cons . She camps there Suze Trappet, a woman condemned by illness who decides to go in search of the child she abandoned when she was 15 years old. A major César winner with 7 awards, the film earned the actress a new nomination in the “best actress” category.

In 2021, she is starring in three films: the intimate thriller Lui by and with Guillaume Canet , the disturbing Madeleine Collins , where she leads a double life, and the sulphurous and highly anticipated Benedetta by Paul Verhoeven. She plays the title role, that of a nun who, at the end of the 15th century, sows disorder in a convent. While the plague rages, Benedetta Carlini claims to have visions of Jesus and abandons herself to a carnal affair with a novice. A daring performance which is still recognized by a César nomination.

Still in demand, Virginie Efira manages to do better in 2022 with four feature films on display. If the adaptation of the novel Waiting for Bojangles and the musical Don Juan went relatively unnoticed, his two other films, Les Enfants des autres and Revoir Paris , attracted critical acclaim. The first, by Rebecca Zlotowski , paints a caring portrait of a woman in love who is trying to find her place in a family as a stepmother. The second follows a survivor of an attack who tries to rebuild herself after her trauma. This drama by Alice Winocour inspired by the events at the Bataclan finally offers her, for her fifth nomination, the César for best actress.