OLIVIER MARTINEZ
Date of Birth: January 12, 1966
Handsome Frenchman Olivier Martinez was born and raised in Paris.
Brought up in a working-class family, he left school at an early age, and
began working at odd jobs to survive. After years of being coaxed into the
acting profession by friends, Martinez took a chance at the age of 23 and
enrolled in the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique in Paris.
The risk paid off as Martinez leapt from theater to television and then to
films. His first role was co-starring in IP5 (1992), for which he
was nominated most promising actor by the César Awards. The following year,
Martinez won a César for his next film role in the drama Un, deux, trois,
soleil (1993). By 1995 he reached the international market with Le
Hussard sur le toit (1995), and was billed in his American promotional
tour as "the French Brad Pitt."
In 2000, he landed a starring role in the Academy Award®-nominated film Before Night Falls, then as a book dealer with whom Diane Lane has an adulterous affair in Unfaithful (2002), also starring Richard Gere. Martinez played a supporting role in S.W.A.T. (2003) starring Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell, followed by Taking Lives (2004), with Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke.
Filmography:
Belle du Seigneur (2007)
Blood and Chocolate (2007)
Taking Lives (2004)
S.W.A.T. (2003)
Semana Santa (2002)
Unfaithful (2002)
Bullfighter (2001)
Before Night Falls (2000)
Toreros (2000)
La Taule / The Slammer (2000)
La Ciudad de los prodigios (1999)
La Femme de chambre du Titanic (1997)
Mon homme / My Man (1996)
Le Hussard sur le toit / The Horseman on the Roof (1995)
Un, deux, trois, soleil (1993)
IP5: L'île aux pachydermes (1992)
Plein fer (1990)