Jean Reno has excelled in a range of film roles, from action heroes to jokers. He came to Hollywood’s notice playing a paid killer in the French film "Leon: The Professional," starring since in several US blockbusters.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Advertisement
Action hero and joker: Jean Reno turns 70
Despite his many successes in US blockbusters, Jean Reno has always remained loyal to the French film industry. For the actor's 70th birthday, we show images from some of his best movies.
Image: picture-alliance/kpa
Competitive diving off the Sicilian coast
Jean Reno's (r.) big break was the movie "The Big Blue." He plays the successful freediver Enzo Molinari, who encounters his former schoolfriend Jacques at a world championship in Italy. The two men learnt to dive together as children; they meet again as rivals, but their exciting duel is about more than just sport: They also find themselves vying for the love of a woman.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
An unusual double act
Hollywood first noticed Jean Reno when he starred in the French film "Leon: The Professional." He plays a professional hitman living alone in New York City, with no wife or children. The loner Leon develops a close connection to 12-year-old Mathilda, who lives in the same building. When the girl’s family are murdered, Mathilda vows revenge: She is determined to become a contract killer herself.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/United Archives
Hollywood comes calling
In "Mission Impossible," Jean Reno (r.) plays an ex-CIA agent, alongside Tom Cruise. Disguised as firemen, they gain access to CIA headquarters during a false fire alarm, where they squeeze through ventilation shafts to get at a secret list of undercover CIA agents. This action thriller was one of Reno’s first Hollywood roles.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives
Time travel a la francaise
Despite his success in American movies, Jean Reno remained loyal to the French film industry. One of his biggest successes in France was the time-travel comedy “The Visitors.” He also played the lead in the sequel, “The Visitors II: The Corridors of Time,” but this didn't do as well as the original, which made $100 million (€85.7 million) worldwide.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Hunting reptilian monsters
Back to Hollywood: Jean Reno’s next box-office hit was the science-fiction thriller "Godzilla." He plays a French secret serviceman who joins forces with the scientist Dr. Nick Tatopoulos; they set off together to track down the monster reptile. Unfortunately, they discover that Godzilla has laid a batch of eggs, and her offspring have started to hatch …
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives
Two flops in a row
In the 10th and 11th films of the American "Pink Panther" series, Reno (r.) took the part of the gendarme Gilbert Ponton. Ponton teams with the provincial policeman Jacques Clouseau, and the pair tries to solve the murder of the French national football coach, Gluant. The reception for both films was lukewarm, though; the 11th was even nominated in the negative Golden Raspberry Awards.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
On set with Tom Hanks
As part of the all-star cast of “The Da Vinci Code,” headlined by Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, Jean Reno’s police inspector Bezu Fache investigated the murder of the curator of the Louvre in Paris. This 2006 film achieved the second biggest cinema release of all time, but it still failed to win over the majority of international critics.
Image: picture-alliance/kpa
The way to the heart is through the stomach …
One of Jean Reno’s favorite roles was that of the Parisian star chef Alexandre Lagarde in “The Chef”. The actor revealed to the German food magazine "Essen & Trinken" that he, too, loves cooking. In the film, his character is in danger of losing his three-star status. In real life, he says, he won over his wife with an unsuccessful omelette.
Image: Nicolas Schul/Gaumont 2011
8 images1 | 8
In an interview in the year 2000, Jean Reno commented that he made one French movie for every Hollywood one. It's not clear whether he adheres strictly to this plan, but it is certain that as he celebrates his 70th birthday, Reno can look back on a wide-ranging filmography across a variety of genres. Not only does he jet back and forth between French and American productions; he has also played widely different roles. He's convincing both as a comedian — in the French time-travel comedy "The Visitors" ("Les Visiteurs," 1993), for example — and as an action hero in films like "Mission Impossible" (1996) or "Godzilla" (1998).
Collaboration with Luc Besson
Reno's big break was the "The Big Blue" ("Le grand bleu," 1988), in which he plays a free diver who takes up the challenge of a daredevil diving competition. The drama by the French director Luc Besson enjoys cult status today. Reviewers raved about the impressive underwater sequences. In 1989 "The Big Blue" received eight nominations for France's César film awards, winning the categories for best film music and best sound.
It was his ongoing collaboration with the film's director, Luc Besson, that brought Reno to Hollywood. After playing several supporting roles in Besson films, Reno got the lead in the action movie "Leon: The Professional" ("Leon," 1984), which was also the motion-picture debut of the young Natalie Portman. Playing the role of the contract killer Leon set Reno's career on an international trajectory. Hollywood came calling soon afterwards, and Reno was offered roles in a range of American productions including "The Pink Panther," "The Da Vinci Code" and "Flyboys."
Jean Reno plays the French fighter pilot Capt. Thenault in the WW I film "Flyboys” (2006), which had only limited successImage: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
'I do whatever feels right at the time'
Reno now has more than 60 films to his name, and while he's celebrated mainly as an action hero in America, French directors like to cast him roles that require him to demonstrate his comic skills. The 70-year-old actor doesn't like to be pigeonholed, though: He told the German press agency DPA that he doesn't see himself as either an action hero or a comedian, just as an actor who does whatever feels right at the time.
Jean Reno was born Juan Moreno y Herrera Jimenez, the son of working-class Spanish parents, in Casablanca. His parents had fled the Franco dictatorship in Spain for Morocco, which was a French protectorate at the time. When he was 19, Reno took French citizenship, and in the early 1970s, after doing his military service in Germany, he moved to Paris, where he gradually started getting work as an actor. His first – albeit tiny – film role was in Constantin Costa-Gavras' movie "Womanlight" ("Clair de femme") alongside Yves Montand and Romy Schneider.
Reno has six children from three marriages, and has been married to the British actress Zofia Borucka since 2006.
