Emmanuelle Seigner

Acting

Emmanuelle Seigner

Born 1966-06-22 · Paris, France

Emmanuelle Seigner (born 22 June 1966) is a French actress and singer. She is known for her roles in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), The Ninth Gate (1999) and Frantic (1988). She has been nominated for a César Award for Best Actress for Venus in Fur (2013), and for two César Awards for Best Supporting Actress in Place Vendôme (1998) and La Vie En Rose (2007). She has been married to Polish film director Roman Polanski since 1989. Seigner is the daughter of Jean-Louis Seigner (1941-2020), photographer, and Aline Ponelle, journalist. She is the older sister of Mathilde Seigner, actress, and Marie-Amélie Seigner, singer. Through their father, they are the granddaughters of the actor Louis Seigner (1903-1991) and the nieces of the actress Françoise Seigner (1928-2008), both deans and members of the Comédie-Française. She is the niece of doctor Véronique Vasseur. She was educated at a Catholic convent school, and began modelling at the age of fourteen. Her husband directed her in Frantic (1988), Bitter Moon (1992), The Ninth Gate (1999), Venus in Fur (2013), Based On A True Story (2017) and An Officer and a Spy (2019). In 2010, Seigner was featured in Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing, which went on to win the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. In 2012, she played the principal role of Vanda in Polanski's French film adaptation of David Ives's two-character play Venus in Fur, based on the Austrian novel of the near-same name, for which she received praise as Vanda, an actress, playing against writer and theatre director Thomas played by Mathieu Amalric. Seigner appears as the main character in the music video "Hands Around My Throat" by Death in Vegas. In 2006, she became the lead singer of the pop rock band Ultra Orange, and the group's name was changed to Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle. They released a self-titled album in 2007. Seigner released a solo album called Distant Lover in 2014. From 2008, she was an ambassadress of the Polish brand Dr Irena Eris. Seigner married Roman Polanski on August 30, 1989 in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. They have two children, Morgane (born in 1993) and Elvis (born in 1998). She and Polanski live with their two children in Paris. Source: Article "Emmanuelle Seigner" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Acting credits

The Ninth Gate poster
6.5

A rare book dealer finds himself at the heart of a string of paranormal events when he is hired to find the last two copies of a text, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, capable of summoning the Devil.

The Ninth Gate

1999

Bitter Moon poster
7.1

A passenger on a cruise ship develops an irresistible infatuation with an eccentric paraplegic's wife.

Bitter Moon

1992

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly poster
7.6

Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2007

An Officer and a Spy poster
7.1

In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Devil’s Island penal colony.

An Officer and a Spy

2019

In the House poster
7.2

A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events.

In the House

2012

Venus in Fur poster
7.2

An enigmatic actress may have a hidden agenda when she auditions for a part in a misogynistic writer's play.

Venus in Fur

2013

At Eternity's Gate poster
7.0

Famed but tormented artist Vincent van Gogh spends his final years in Arles, France, painting masterworks of the natural world that surrounds him.

At Eternity's Gate

2018

La Vie en Rose poster
7.4

From the mean streets of the Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New York's most famous concert halls, Edith Piaf's life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Raised in her grandmother's brothel, Piaf was discovered in 1935 by nightclub owner Louis Leplee, who persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Piaf became one of France's immortal icons, her voice one of the indelible signatures of the 20th century.

La Vie en Rose

2007

Heart of the Festival poster
6.7

A short film containing some of the highlights of the Cannes Film Festival's storied history.

Heart of the Festival

2002

Frantic poster
6.7

The wife of an American doctor suddenly vanishes in Paris. To find her, he navigates a puzzling web of language, locale, laissez-faire cops, triplicate-form filling bureaucrats and a defiant, mysterious waif who knows more than she tells.

Frantic

1988

The Siege of Jadotville poster
7.1

Irish Commandant Pat Quinlan leads a stand off with troops against French and Belgian Mercenaries in the Congo during the early 1960s.

The Siege of Jadotville

2016

Le Sourire poster
4.9

An old psychiatrist finds out that he is likely to suffer a second and probably fatal heart attack in the near future. As a consequence he becomes determined to seduce Odile, a young woman he first encounters in a railway compartment.

Le Sourire

1994

Based on a True Story poster
5.7

Delphine is the author of an autobiographical novel that has become a bestseller. Exhausted by the promotional tour, just when she feels out of place, paralyzed by the idea of having to start writing again, she meets Elle, a young, attractive, intelligent, intuitive woman who seems to understand her better than anyone.

Based on a True Story

2017

The King of Ads poster
4.3

A collection of European T.V. commercials directed by a variety of well-known directors from across Europe and the U.S. Compiled and produced by Jean-Marie Boursicot.

The King of Ads

1991

Pet Shop Days poster
5.8

On the run from his unforgiving father in Mexico, Alejandro finds himself in New York City, where he meets Jack, a pet store employee with similar parental baggage. Together the two enter a whirlwind romance sending them down the rabbit hole of drugs and depravity in Manhattan’s underworld. When Alejandro’s past threatens to catch up with him, Jack is forced to choose between his family and a life on the run.

Pet Shop Days

2025

Happily Ever After poster
6.0

Is love compatible with coupledom? And what of freedom and fidelity? These are some of the questions facing two married men.

Happily Ever After

2004

Four Last Songs poster
5.4

A comic drama set on a Mediterranean island, where a motley collection of characters is seeking musical redemption.

Four Last Songs

2007

Detective poster
5.2

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.

Detective

1985

Place Vendôme poster
6.2

The story of a woman that remained distracted for a long time from her life, from the passions that made her feel alive. The importance of true love is compared with the material value of diamonds. Only one truly lasts forever. She's got to find the thing that values most for her, the thing that gives psychical stability and real happiness again to her life.

Place Vendôme

1998

Nirvana poster
6.5

Jimi, a computer game designer, finds that his latest product has been infected by a virus which has given consciousness to the main character of the game, Solo. Tormented by the memory of his fled girlfriend Lisa and begged by Solo to end its useless "life", Jimi begins a search for people who can help him both to discover what happened to Lisa and to delete his game before it is released.

Nirvana

1997

Stalin's Couch poster
4.0

Set in the 1950s Soviet Union, centers on a young artist who is commissioned to create Stalin's monument and must go through KGB scrutiny.

Stalin's Couch

2016

Private Tuition poster
5.4

Jeanne Kern is a pretty, somewhat repressed schoolteacher who suffers a smear campaign at work. Someone has been sending her director letters accusing her of lewd and immoral conduct. Matters take a turn for the worse when a photograph of an orgy is sent to all the faculty with one face cut out; presumably, the face is hers.

Private Tuition

1986

Essential Killing poster
5.9

A Taliban soldier struggles to survive after he escapes his captors and flees into the Polish countryside.

Essential Killing

2010

Heal the Living poster
6.5

The intersecting lives of teens on a surfing trip, a woman with a weak heart and two teams of doctors and medical experts.

Heal the Living

2016