It more than twenty years ago, a small role in The Pact of the Wolves had earned him notice thanks to his physique as a future young first. Model, trainee at Cours Florent and former film student, Gaspard Ulliel had all the assets to succeed without going through the casting boxes. In 2002, Michel Blanc engaged him in his black comedy, Kiss whoever you want and the following year André Téchiné will follow with The Lost. Three years later, it is the consecration with a Caesar for A long engagement Sunday, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, in which he plays opposite Audrey Tautou. Eclectic, it will go from Jacquou le Croquant to the terrifying Hannibal Lecter, son of Isabelle Huppert (A dam against the Pacific) or Jean Reno (The First Circle). Among his most notable films is Saint Laurent by Bertrand Bonello: he excels in the character of the famous couturier alongside Léa Seydoux and Jérémie Renier. On March 30, we will discover it in a Disney+ mini-series, Moon Knight, with Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke. He was currently filming another series under the direction of Xavier Giannoli, silver and blood, for Canal+.
“The Pact of Wolves” (2001)
In 1766, a mysterious beast rages in the mountains of Gévaudan and claims many victims, without anyone being able to identify or kill it. In this terrifying film by Christopher Gans, with Monica Bellucci, Gaspard Ulliel only has a small role but he is quickly carried away by the success of the film, which collects more than five million admissions in France and makes the buzz in the States -United.
“Kiss whoever you want” (2002)
In this adaptation of a novel by Joseph Connolly, English holidays, Michel Blanc films many characters on vacation in Le Touquet: a couple caught up in routine, Charlotte Rampling and Jacques Dutronc, another in distress, Karin Viard and Denis Podalydès, a woman persecuted (Carole Bouquet) by a jealous husband (Michel Blanc), a lovesick single mother (Clotilde Courau). In this scathing comedy, Gaspard Ulliel plays a teenager tormented by his desires in the face of an uncomfortable Lou Doillon.
“A Long Engagement Sunday” (2004)
A role to his measure, the one that will give him his first César for best male performer. A prize that highlights his qualities as an actor and his budding maturity. In this drama by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, adapted from the novel by Sébastien Japrisot, we find Gaspard Ulliel in the trenches of the Somme, during the First World War. He plays Manech, a young Breton, sentenced to death with five other soldiers after self-mutilating to escape their duty. Is he really dead? His fiancée Mathilde, played by Audrey Tautou, doesn’t believe it at all and struggles to find her trace among the ghosts.
“The Princess of Montpensier” (2010)
Presented in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, this period film takes place in 1562, during the wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants. Bertrand Tavernier did not hesitate to choose Gaspard Ulliel to play the very physical role of the Duke of Guise, with whom Marie de Mézières (Mélanie Thierry) is in love but forced to marry the Prince of Montpensier (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet). During a sword and dagger fight scene, the actor is injured in the mouth by his partner Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet. Under the admiring gaze of Bertrand Tavernier, “happy to direct intrepid actors under 30”.
“Yves Saint-Laurent” (2014)
While Jalil Lespert chooses Pierre Niney to camp Yves Saint Laurent at the dawn of his success, Bertrand Bonello chooses Gaspard Ulliel to take us later in the career of the famous couturier, when he left Dior and created his own clothing line. . Beyond the physical resemblance, the actor finds material to compose a complex character with his neuroses, his torments and his excesses. On CNews, he declared: “Bonello told me that his desire for the character was to find as much of me as of Saint Laurent. I had to find a totally free and virgin space beyond which I could recreate, fantasize things. »
“Just the end of the world” (2016)
A second Caesar for Gaspard Ulliel, moving as a young writer who returns to his native village, after twelve years of absence, to announce to his family that he will soon die. By adapting Jean-Luc Lagarce’s play, director Xavier Dolan brought together a luxurious cast for ten days of filming: Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel, Nathalie Baye, Léa Seydoux gathered around the deceased actor who embodies the melancholic figure and desperate for this family affair.