Mélanie Laurent is a French actress and filmmaker. The recipient of two César Awards and a Lumières Award, she is an accomplished actress in the French film industry. Internationally, Laurent is best known for her roles in Inglourious Basterds (2009), Now You See Me (2013), Operation Finale (2018) and 6 Underground (2019).
Laurent at the 41st César Awards in 2016
Laurent in 2008
Eli Roth, Laurent, and Lawrence Bender at a screening of Inglourious Basterds in 2009
Laurent promotes Aloft at the 2014 Berlinale International Film Festival
Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 historical war action-thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an alternate history story of two converging plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's leadership at a Paris cinema—one through a British operation largely carried out by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt), and another by French Jewish cinema proprietor Shosanna Dreyfus (Laurent) who seeks to avenge her murdered family. Both are faced against Hans Landa (Waltz), an SS colonel with a fearsome reputation of hunting Jews. The title was inspired by Italian director Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 Euro War film The Inglorious Bastards, though Tarantino's film is not a remake of it.
Theatrical release poster
Eli Roth, Mélanie Laurent, and producer Lawrence Bender at a premiere for the film in August 2009
Cast and crew at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
Waltz's breakthrough performance as the antagonist Hans Landa earned notable acclaim and numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor