Gaspard Ulliel

Overview

Born
November 25, 1984 · Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Died
January 19, 2022 · La Tronche, Isère, France (skiing accident)
Birth name
Gaspard Thomas Ulliel
Height
5′ 10″ (1.78 m)

Biography

Family

Children
Parents

Trademarks

scar on his left cheek that looked like a dimple

Trivia

The scar on his left cheek was the result of a doberman's attack when Gaspard was 6 years old. He attempted to ride the dog like a horse and he hit Gaspard's face with his claws, which left him with a little scar that looked like a dimple. Gaspard used to say that the scar helped to express feelings in his acting. His scar was used as a plot device in several films, but he considered the most memorable scene the one featured in A Very Long Engagement (2004), where Audrey Tautou's character runs her finger across Gaspard's scar when they're saying goodbye to each other when he's leaving for the war. Ulliel's obituary in the French newspaper ''Libération'' described him as having the "most famous scar in French cinema".
Became a father for the first and only time at the age of 31, when his then-girlfriend Gaëlle Piétri gave birth to their son, Orso, on January 12, 2016. Orso is a typical Corsican name (Pietri was born in Corsica) and means "bear" in Italian. Ulliel and Pietri broke up in 2020.
Was a fan of Sufjan Stevens and Prince.
Was a fan-favorite fan-cast for the role of Edward in Twilight (2008), and for the role of Remy LeBeau/Gambit in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In order to prepare for his role as cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising (2007), director Peter Webber sent Ulliel off to a medical school in Prague to attend a real autopsy, so that he could see what it's really like when bodies are cut up. Webber thought Ulliel would be horrified by it, but he came back from the medical school saying he wanted to go back the next day, because he came in during the last week of lesson when the bodies were so destroyed that they didn't look real and he couldn't imagine that he was looking at a real human body, so he asked if he could go on the first day of the next session to see the fresh bodies.

Quotes

I began at twelve years old, but in fact I began really by chance. It was a friend of a friend of my mother's who was opening an agency, and she was looking for young kids. And so I entered the agency, but more by curiosity than real passion. And at first I had some small parts in TV movies - in fact my parents didn't want me to miss school, so I was working just once or twice a year. And I had a really regular progression - and this is really pleasant, I think - because I had small parts in TV movies, then bigger parts in TV movies, and then small parts in films. And I think this allows you to get...experience of the set and to get familiar with [the process]. And as I had a really slow progression, I think it really helped me to stay lucid and not get carried away.
[when asked if he thinks the scar on his left cheek was a factor in his casting in Hannibal Rising (2007) - interview for RadioFree on January 26, 2007] Many people talk about this scar, and a few directors before [Peter Webber] were seduced, if I can say so, by this scar. I'm going to phone the surgeon and thank him for it. [laughs] I was six years old and a dog was sleeping in a garden, and I just jumped on his back like I would have done on a horse. And so he just hit me with his claws, and that made a nice little scar. But it looks like a dimple. It's nice, and it might help, sometimes, to express feelings in my acting. I'm not really conscious about this because I can't really see my face when I'm acting.
[press conference for Saint Laurent (2014) at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival] You have to look things up, read documents, I tried to learn as much as I could about Yves, the era, his family, his friends, his work, and then I decided to sort of forget it, assimilate it and stand back to be totally free. The idea is to go ever further, to transcend certain limits - to try to transform something by being inspired by it and by appropriating it. The idea was not to become Yves Saint-Laurent but to portray him in a true and fair way. With Bertrand [Bertrand Bonello], it was very clear from the start; he said to me, "What interests me is to film you, to film Gaspard." So, there was part of me in Yves. The idea was not simply to copy, to become Yves - that was the danger, the trap we wanted to avoid. I don't really think the word "direction" really applies to Bertrand; it's more like he accompanied me and we held hands together as we launched into this adventure. Nothing is fixed in Bertrand's work - sometimes we started a sequence and it ended up going in the opposite direction from what we anticipated. I think his work is very organic - it can't be described in precise words. What's decisive in his work is the emotion, the nascent emotion and grace between the actors.