page_title: Mélanie Laurent
section_title: Debut and early success (2006–08)
hierarchical_section_title: Mélanie Laurent / Career / Debut and early success (2006–08)
caption_attribution_description: French actress Mélanie Laurent
context_page_description: Mélanie Laurent is a French actress, filmmaker, singer, and pianist. The recipient of two César Awards and a Lumières Award, she has established herself as an accomplished actress in the French film industry.
  Born in Paris to a Jewish family, Laurent was introduced to acting at the age of sixteen by Gérard Depardieu, who cast her in a minor role in the romantic drama The Bridge. She gained wider recognition for her supporting work in several French films, most notably the 2006 comedy Dikkenek, for which she won Étoiles d'Or for Best Female Newcomer. Her breakthrough role came in the 2006 drama film Don't Worry, I'm Fine, for which she later won the César Award for Most Promising Actress and the Prix Romy Schneider. Laurent made her Hollywood debut in 2009 with the starring role as Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino's blockbuster war film Inglourious Basterds. Her performance won the Online Film Critics Society and the Austin Film Critics Association Best Actress Awards.
context_section_description: Laurent played minor roles in a number of films early in her career. She appeared in Michel Blanc's drama Summer Things, Jackie Chan's comedy-drama Rice Rhapsody, Jacques Audiard's drama The Beat That My Heart Skipped and the war film Days of Glory about the Free French Forces.
  Laurent's breakthrough role came in 2006, when she played a sullen 19-year-old who longed for her lost twin brother, in Philippe Lioret's Don't Worry, I'm Fine. She won a César Award for Most Promising Actress for her performance. In a review for Variety, Ronnie Scheib praised Laurent and wrote that she, "makes her vibrant character’s downward spiral totally believable without indulging in moody sullenness". That same year, she and Belgian actor Jérémie Renier were awarded France's Romy Schneider and Jean Gabin Prizes for most promising actor and actress. Laurent then starred in the Franco-Belgian Dikkenek, a comedy directed by Olivier Van Hoofstadt that has attained a cult film over the years owing to its Belgian-style humour, in which she co-starred alongside Marion Cotillard, Jérémie Renier, Jean-Luc Couchard and Dominique Pinon. For her performance in the film, Laurent won the Étoiles d'Or for Best Female Newcomer.
  In 2007, Laurent appeared in films including Le tueur and Hidden Love. She was nominated for the Lumières Award for Best Actress for her performance in La Chambre des morts. Laurent next appeared in Cédric Klapisch's 2008 comedy drama Paris, a French film concerning a diverse group of people. The film has an ensemble cast including Laurent, Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini, and François Cluzet. The film was well received and praised for the cast's performances.
caption: Laurent in 2008
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