Gwendoline Hamon: 3 things to know about the famous actress

A star born into a famous family. However, nothing predestined Gwendoline Hamon to make a career in comedy. “I didn’t think I was going to make it my job, but it’s a universe that was not at all foreign to me,” she confides to Planet.

And for good reason, it is thanks to her family that Gwendoline Hamon naturally turned to the theater. A hobby she inherits from her playwright grandfather Jean Anouilh and her grandmother, the director Nicole Anouilh. “I went to the theater a lot with her. I loved talking about theater with my grandmother, it brought me closer to her”, assures us the sweet actress.

Considered by those close to her as a clown, Gwendoline Hamon spent her childhood doing impersonations and shows. “I like to play comedy, to be silly and to make up my face”, admits the actress. And, that, even on the benches of the school. “When I was little, I did a play in primary school for the end of the year. A sort of adaptation of Forbidden Games in CM2 at the theater with girlfriends”.

For the granddaughter of Jean and Nicole Anouilh, this hobby allowed her to live her experiences as an actress during her youth. Between commercials and TV movies, she also made an appearance in a film by Maurice Pialat. “I played in Loulou de Pialat at eight years old, through a friend of my grandmother. The director was looking for a little girl”. A passion that will encourage him as a teenager to take acting lessons in the language of Shakespeare. Familiar with the world of comedy, Gwendoline Hamon has yet failed to choose another professional path.

After high school, Gwendoline Hamon finds herself torn between two career choices. “I started a journalism school just after at 18. And, at the same time, I was taking acting lessons,” she told Planet before adding. “The theater grabbed me and probably gave me a framework that I needed”.

By her own admission, Gwendoline Hamon recognizes a certain attraction towards professions focused on people and communication. “I would have liked to be a journalist, to denounce things while being a lawyer. I would not have liked to be a psychiatrist either”. Before sliding humorously. “I could have done a thousand other jobs, but this one suits me very well”.

While studying great authors in classical theatre, Gwendoline Hamon landed the chance of a lifetime which would launch her career. In 1990, she passed an audition and obtained the role of Mariane in L’Avare de Molière where she will play with Michel Bouquet. “It was getting very serious for me and my family. I’m not going to have to laugh,” recalled the actress. More than 30 years after her debut, she has become a leading face in fiction thanks to the Cassandra series.

Since 2015, Gwendoline Hamon has played Commissioner Florence Cassandre in the detective fiction of France 3. Alongside actors Alexandre Varga (Captain Pascal Roche) and Dominique Pinon (Lieutenant Jean-Paul Marchand), the heroine leads the investigation in heart of the Auvergne-Rhône Alpes region. With already twenty episodes to her credit, the actress has gained popularity with 4 to 5 million viewers.

However, the actress always aspires to surprise the public. With her theatrical training, Gwendoline Hamon likes to play comedy as much as drama. “I would like people to trust me more with roles in which I am not imagined”, affirms the star nominated for the Molières in 2000. “I would love to play a character who does not necessarily have a relationship with the image that I send back”.

Before reuniting with her in episodes of Cassandre next November, Gwendoline Hamon will also be starring in the unitary Maman, don’t let me fall asleep, a dramatic television film by Sylvie Testud, inspired and adapted from the autobiography of her friend Juliette Boudre, with Gérard Lanvin and Nemo Schiffman on France 2. Without forgetting her return to the boards in the play on the boulevard Happy Easter at the Marigny theater for 2023.