Hélène Cardona

Hélène Cardona is an international actress & writer born in Paris and raised all over Europe. A graduate of the Sorbonne and AADA (New York), she has worked extensively in film & television and is known for Chocolat (2000), The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014), Star Trek: Discovery (2017), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), World War Z (2013), Jurassic World (2015), and Mumford (1999). She recurs as Monique in Season 2 of Upload (2020), is the Computer Voice in Heroes Reborn (2015) and her many voice characters include the Cerebro in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Happy Feet Two (2011) and Muppets Most Wanted (2014).

For Serendipity (2001), she co-wrote with Peter Chelsom and Alan Silvestri the song Lucienne, which she also sang. TV guest roles include Law & Order, Passions, The Bold and the Beautiful, One Life to Live, The New Adventures of Robin Rood, Another World, among many. Producing credits include the award-winning documentary Femme (2013).

Hélène won the 2023 Best Actress Award at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema, 2022 Vanguard Award for Cinematic Achievement by an Actress at the Scotland International Festival of Cinema, and Best Supporting Actress at Beyond the Curve International Film Festival in Paris and Lady Filmmakers Festival for her role of Arlette Linstrom in Caralique.

Hélène won the Jean-Luc Godard Award at the Cult Critics Movie Awards. In 2022, Hélène won Best Actress at the Tokyo International and V.I.Z. Film Festivals, and Best Supporting Actress at the Swedish International Film Festival, Accord Cine Fest, Druk International and Indo French International Film Festivals, Beyond the Curve International Film Festival, Virgin Spring Fest, and Royal Society of Television & Motion Picture Awards, for her role of Venus in Halo. She also won Golden Actress at the Golden Short Film Festival and was Semi-Finalist at the San Francisco Indie Short Festival.

Hélène also trained with Ellen Burstyn, Sandra Seacat, and Susan Batson at the Actors' Studio. She performed at the Players Club, The Actors' Studio, and with The Naked Angels and Ubu Theater Companies in New York.

A citizen of the United States, France and Spain, she speaks English, French, Spanish, German, Greek and Italian. Born in Paris of a Greek mother and Spanish father and raised all over Europe, she studied English Philology and Literature in Cambridge, England; Spanish at the International Universities of Santander and Baeza, Spain; and German at the Goethe Institute in Bremen, Germany. She attended Hamilton College, New York, where she also taught French and Spanish, and the Sorbonne, Paris, where she wrote her thesis on Henry James for her Master's in American Literature. She graduated from the Music Conservatory in Geneva, Switzerland, where she also trained as a pianist and dancer, and performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

She has lived in Paris, France; Geneva, Switzerland; Cambridge and London, England; Llandudno, Wales; Monte-Carlo, Monaco; Bremen, Germany; Madrid, Tarragona and Santander, Spain; Vienna, Austria; New York City and Santa Monica, and has worked in France, the UK, the US, Lithuania, Italy, and Morocco.

She is the author of Life in Suspension (Salmon Poetry), winner of the 2020 Independent Press Award, 2017 International Book Award, 2017 Best Book Award in Poetry, Pinnacle Book Award for Best Bilingual Poetry Book, Readers' Favorite Book Award in Poetry, and Finalist for the Julie Suk Book Award and the 2016 Lascaux Prize in Poetry; Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry), winner of the Best Book Award in Poetry, Pinnacle Book Award for Best Bilingual Poetry Book, Readers' Favorite Book Award in Poetry, and Finalist for the International Book Award in Poetry and the The Julie Suk Book Award; Beyond Elsewhere (White Pine Press), recipient of a Hemingway Grant, her translation of Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac; Ce que nous portons (Editions du Cygne), her translation of Dorianne Laux; and The Astonished Universe (Red Hen Press). She co-wrote with John M. FitzGerald the screenplay Primate, based on his novel, and writes children stories.

The Abduction, her translation of Le Rapt by Franco-Syrian poet Maram Al-Masri, was awarded an Albertine and FACE Foundation grant in 2023.

Birnam Wood, her translation of El Bosque de Birnam by her father José Manuel Cardona, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2018. it won the 2022 Independent Press Award and NYC Big Book Award, 2019 Best Book Award in Poetry, 2019 Readers' Favorite Award Gold Medal in Poetry, Pinnacle Book Award for Best Bilingual Poetry Collection, Julie Suk Honor. It was a Finalist for the 2019 Eric Hoffer Book Award and the 2019 International Poetry Book Award and was named Best Translation in the Washington Independent Review of Books and a World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2018.

With Yves Lambrecht, she co-translated Walt Whitman's Civil War Writings (Whitman et la Guerre de Sécession) for WhitmanWeb.

She has worked as a translator/interpreter for the Canadian Embassy, the French Chamber of Commerce and works as a translator and language coach for the film and music industry. She is also a teacher, dream analyst, animal lover and animal activist.

Hélène is a yoga practitioner, dancer and equestrian, and speaks six languages.

Member of BAFTA/US, SAG-AFTRA, ALTA, AWP, PEN, Poetry Society of America, American Academy of Poets.