A key face of French-speaking cinema. At 70, Yolande Moreau is a popular actress with the French, and particularly with our readers, according to our last survey before the César 2023 evening. With her personality and her sense of retort, the one that was revealed on television in Les Deschiens (Canal) is a talent from the flat country.
Born February 27, 1953 in Brussels, Belgium, Yolande Moreau was raised by a Walloon father, a timber merchant and a Flemish stay-at-home mother. During her childhood, the second of a family of four girls was first destined to pursue a career in the orders. “I had a very Catholic upbringing. Between the ages of 11 and 14, I experienced a mystical period. I wanted to become a nun,” she said in comments quoted by Télé-Loisirs.
She bears witness to her relationship with faith by slipping in an astonishing confidence. “I served mass. I went there early enough to drink a sip of wine from the cruets…”. Trained with her sisters in a Catholic institution, Yolande Moreau does not seem interested in studying and prefers to abandon her studies when she comes of age to turn to art.
“I was the artist of the family. I wanted to match the image my parents had of me. It was comfortable because it was an escape,” she told our colleagues. In parallel with her vocation, Yolande Moreau became a mother at the age of 19 of two children: a daughter Héloïse (who had become a scriptwriter) and a son Nils. Juggling her family life, Yolande Moreau tries to make ends meet by combining several jobs: she works in a children’s theater in Brussels, then as a waitress and cleaning lady.
Yolande Moreau’s career began in the 1980s with a theater internship with theater teacher Philippe Gaulier. In 1982, the Belgian presents her first show (or alone on stage) which will earn her a grand prize at the Festival du rire de Rochefort. On the cinema side, it is the director Agnès Varda who will give him a chance in his short film 7 p., cuisine., s. de b…. to be seized in 1984. Then, the following year, playing in Without roof or law with Sandrine Bonnaire.
After several years of career, the one who also made an appearance in Captain Marleau has established herself in several successful films and comedies. Among the highlights of her career, the sexagenarian won two Césars in 2004 for her film When the Sea Rises…And another trophy awarded in 2009 by the Academy for her cult role in the biopic Séraphine. Planet invites you to come back to 5 outstanding roles of the actress in pictures in our slideshow.