JEAN RENO

Date of Birth: July 30, 1948

Jean Reno was born in Casablanca, Morocco to Spanish (Andalusian) parents who moved to North Africa to escape the fascism of Francisco Franco. His parents returned to France when Reno was 12 and during his teens, his mother died.

Reno pursued his dream of acting in France after serving his military obligation in Germany. Settling in Paris, he joined stage director Didier Flamand in a traveling theater company that took him around the country.

Reno first registered strongly with his work in Costa Gavras's Claire de Femme in 1979, which he followed with a widely praised performance in Luc Besson's Le Dernier Combat in 1982. This was the first in a series of collaborations with Besson; subsequent films include Subway, The Big Blue and the international hit La Femme Nikita.

Reno's European feature film credits include Pardela les Nuages, Le Jaguar, Loulou Graffiti and L'Operation Corned Beef.

Reno attained success in America after starring as a hitman in the American feature film Léon (1994), introducing a young Natalie Portman. He has since enjoyed considerable success in other American films, co-starring in the spy thriller Mission Impossible, and the comedies French Kiss (1995) and The Pink Panther (2006). More recently he played the plum role of Bezu Fache in the highly-touted The Da Vinci Code (2006), starring Tom Hanks.

Reno is divorced from his first wife, with whom he has two children. In 1996, he married second wife Nathalie Dyszkiewicz and they have two children together. They live most of the time in Paris but also have a home in Los Angeles.

Filmography:

Armored (2009)
Couples Retreat (2009)
Margaret (2009)
The Pink Panther 2 (2009)
Ca$h (2008)
Flushed Away (2006) (voice)
Flyboys (2006)
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
The Pink Panther (2006)
La tigre et la neve (2005)
L'empire des loups (2005)
Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocolypse/Les Rivières pourpres 2 - Les anges de l'apocolypse (2004)
Tais-toi (2003)
Rollerball (2002)
Wasabi (2001)
Just Visiting (2001)
Rollerball (2001)
The Crimson Rivers/Les rivières pourpres (2000)
Tripwire (1999)
ronin (1998)
Godzilla (1998)
Les Couloirs du temps: Les visiteurs 2 (1998)
Roseanna's Grave (1997)
Un amour de sorcière (1997)
Le Jaguar (1996)
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Par-dela  les nuages (1995)
French Kiss (1995)
Les Truffes (1995)
Faire un film pour moi c'est vivre (1995)
The Professional (1994)
The Visitors (1993)
Flight from Justice (1993)
La Vis (1993)
L' Opération Corned-Beef (1991)
Loulou Graffiti (1991)
Nikita (1990)
The Man in the Golden Mask (1990)
Zone rouge (1990)
The Big Blue(1988/I)
I Love You (1986)
Strictement personnel (1985)
Subway (1985)
Our Story (1984)
The Final Combat (1983)
Signes extérieurs de richesse (1983)
Les Bidasses grandes manoeuvres (1982)
The Passerby (1982)
On n'est pas des anges... elles non plus (1981)
Voulez-vous un bébé Nobel? (1980)
Clair de femme (1979)
L' Hypothèse du tableau volé (1978)