Gaspard Ulliel (1984-2022)
Wednesday, January 19, 2022 at 8:00PM by Eric Blume
My heart broke this morning, waking up to news that the great French actor Gaspard Ulliel passed away today as a result of a skiing accident. He was just 37. This is a true tragedy, and a huge loss to the cinema.Despite his youth, he'd been in the film business for over twenty years...
He first made a splash as a teenager in the 2002 film Summer Things, opposite Charlotte Rampling, Jacques Ductronc, and Karin Viard. He was nominated for a Cesar Award for Most Promising Actor for his sensitive work in this smart dramedy.
He followed that breakout with a star-making lead role in Andre Techine's 2003 film Strayed. Playing opposite Emmanuelle Béart at her most breathtaking, young Ulliel matched and surpassed her in this weird, powerful film. Ulliel had an intoxicating combination of feral magnetism and fragile vulnerability. It was a dichotomy he leaned into and out of throughout his career. He received another César nomination for this film.
He won his first César the following year for Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement. As love interest for heroine Audrey Tautou, he played his not-particularly-interesting role with fervor and passion, raising the emotional stakes of the picture while fulfilling the romantic hero qualities in spades as well. Ulliel spent the next decade busy in French cinema and even dropped into a major English language production playing Hannibal Lecter in 2007's Hannibal Rising.
In 2014, he found himself with another César nomination and a Lumière win for playing designer Yves St. Laurent in the biopic Saint Laurent, France's Oscar submission that year which was released in the US in 2015 Having Ulliel, Jeremie Renier, Louis Garrel, and Lea Seydoux all together is almost too much sexy for one film; Gaspard deserved all his accolades there.
The following year, Ulliel won the Best Actor Cesar for his lead role in Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World. The film, which also stars Nathalie Baye, Vincent Cassel, and Marion Cotillard, was hugely divisive upon release, but well-loved in France. It's a demanding, immersive film, and Ulliel's performance is shattering, his career high-water mark and work that's touched with a true lyricism.
Ulliel had filmed one last French movie that will be released later this year, More Than Ever, alongside Vicky Krieps, so perhaps we have one more wonderful Gaspard performance to look forward to. He is also set to appear on Marvel's Disney+ series Moon Knight (in a villain role) which debuts in March.
It would be disingenuous to close this tribute without mentoning Ulliel's stunning beauty. He was indeed classically handsome, gorgeous in fact, but there was also something off about him...a sinewy animal quality that made him feel dangerous. He had an uncanny ability to know when to play against his looks, but also when to forge full-throttle into that charisma and perfect camera face.
His acting was instinctual, but he had enviable technique. He approached his roles with sophistication and insight, but his work always seemed immediate, right at the surface of his skin. His passing seems... not possible. I am shattered that we will not see that stunning face and vibrant spirit onscreen for the next decades. He surely had so much more to give us.
Reader Comments (7)
I absolutely loved him in Saint Laurent.
My heart is broken. Fell in love with him after just seeing him in the trailer for A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT. He and Gael were my first two major crushes. Loved, loved, loved him. RIP
Such a shocking and tragic loss. His son is only 5 years old. :'(
I first saw him in Strayed at a film festival where I was a volunteer as he was just incredible. Other than A Very Long Engagement and Hannibal Rising, I didn't see anything else though I knew he was active and being awesome. I just heard he was going to be in Moon Knight as that just broke me. 37 years old and was about to embark on a major project for TV that probably would've elevated him and maybe become part of something more.
Au revoir Gaspard.
I met him in 2014 and he was so friendly and charming. Always very watchable onscreen. This is so sad.
This one hurts so much. Been cheering him on since Hannibal Rising and Paris Je'taime. Loved seeing how much he had a grown as an artist in Saint Laurent and It's Only the End of the World. This is just so out of nowhere.... :'(
The equally dreamy Gerard Philipe died at almost the same age at the height of his popularity. I couldn't help noticing this horrible coincidence.