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Gérard's film debut came in a small way in Le Beatnik et le Minet (1965). A succession of bit parts followed in the early 1970's. His breakthrough role was his 1973 performance as one of a pair of young louts in Bertrand Blier's Going Places.
Depardieu went on to star in five other films for Blier: Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, Buffet Froid, Menage, Too Beautiful For You and Merci la Vie. He also teamed regularly with other French directors: with Marguerite Duras (Nathalie Granger), Francis Weber (La Chevre, Le Plaçard), Alain Resnais (Mon Oncle D'Amerique), Maurice Pialat (Loulou, Police, Le Garçu) and Claude Berri (Jean de Florette, Germinal, Uranus).
Depardieu's most critically acclaimed European films include Francois Truffaut's The Last Metro, for which Depardieu won a French César as Best Actor; Bernardo Bertulucci's 1900; Daniel Vigne's The Return of Martin Guerre; Andrzej Wajda's Danton (for which Depardieu was named Best Actor by the National Society of Film Critics); and Bruno Nuytten's Camille Claudel. His role in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Cyrano de Bergerac won Depardieu numerous accolades, including a César as Best Actor, a Best Actor award at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award® nomination as Best Actor.
In 1990, Depardieu crossed the Atlantic and made his American film debut, joining Andie McDowell in Green Card, a box office hit that earned him an American fan base and a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Comedy. The following year, he starred as Christopher Columbus in Ridley Scott's epic, 1492: Conquest of Paradise. He has since become a regular player in Hollywood, starring in such films as Bogus with Whoopie Goldberg, Unhook the Stars with Gena Rowlands, The Secret Agent with Bob Hoskins, The Man in the Iron Mask with Leonardo DiCaprio and 102 Dalmatians with Glenn Close.
In recent years, Depardieu has become an active film producer (his production company is called "DD"), and he also occasionally directs. He has formed a liaison with the French production company GMT, and together they produced The Count of Monte Cristo, a mini-series for French television with Depardieu in the title role. Count was a great success in Europe and was imported to the US (with subtitles) by Bravo. Thus began a number of French/US TV mini-series projects including Balzac (1999) and Les Misérables (2000). Scripts for Napolean, The Three Muskateers and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are being prepared for future productions. French literature -- done by the French, and done very well, thank you -- is a dream that might not have been possible without the purse and the International cache of Depardieu.
But even his full involvement in these projects doesn't keep M. Depardieu off the streets. He continues to take roles -- both major and minor -- in films all over the world, working more often than not out of loyalty to his large 'film family' or for the perceived value in a story rather than for the big bucks.
In recent years, Depardieu has the title role in the Cannes 2000 opening film Vatel and was Obélix the European smash hit Astérix and Obélix (1999). He also works regularly in America. In fact, he works regularly everywhere. A simple glance at his roster of films for the years 2000 and 2001 alone demonstrates his place in world cinema: I Am Dina (Norway), Concorrenza sleale (Italy), Zavist Bogov (Russia), CQ (US), Beneath the Banyon Trees (US), Le Plaçard (France), Berenice (France TV), Le Acteurs (France), All the Love There Is (Italy), 102 Dalmatians (US), Les Misérables (France/US/Italy/Germany TV), Vidocq (France), Asterix: Mission Cleopatra (France).
As Rolling Stone noted, he is indeed the hardest working man in "Le Showbusiness". He's been creating his legacy for three full decades and hopefully will continue to do so for many years to come.
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