The actor Niels Arestrup, awarded a César for “A Prophet”, “Quai d’Orsay” and “De Batter Mon Coeur Stopped”, has died at 75

He was awarded three Césars for best actor in a supporting role for “The Beat My Heart Stopped” in 2006, “A Prophet” in 2010 and “Quai d’Orsay” in 2014.

French cinema is losing one of its striking faces. Actor and comedian Niels Arestrup died at the age of 75, his wife, Isabelle Le Nouvel, announced on Sunday December 1 to France Télévisions. He died on Sunday at his home in Ville-d'Avray (Hauts-de-Seine), “at the end of a courageous fight against illness” et “surrounded by the love of his family”according to his wife, with whom he had two twins in 2012. He was rewarded with three Césars for best actor in a supporting role for My heart stopped beating in 2006, A prophet in 2010 and Quai d'Orsay in 2014.

Appeared in the series Black Baron et Black ButterfliesNiels Arestrup was nominated for a César in 2011 for The man who wanted to live his life (best supporting actor), in 2015 for Diplomacy (best actor) and in 2018 for Goodbye up there (Best Supporting Actor). This man of the theater also had three nominations for the Molière du comedian for Copenhagen in 1999, Letters to a young poet in 2006 and Diplomacy in 2011. In 2020, he received the Molière award for actor in a private theater show for Rouge.

Born in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis) to a Danish father and a Breton mother, he began his career on stage in the 1960s, before making his cinema debut in the 1970s under the direction of Samy Pavel, Alain Resnais and Claude Lelouch. Despite a few leading roles, he had to wait until the second half of his career to make his mark on the history of French cinema. Under the orders of Jacques Audiard, he plays a perfidious father in My heart stopped beatingthen a godfather of the Corsican mafia in prison in A prophet.