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Jean
Renowas born Juan Moreno July
30, 1948 in Casablanca, Morocco to Spanish parents who moved to North Africa to
escape the fascism of Franco.
He moved
to France after fulfilling his spell of military service in Germany, and settled in
Paris at the age of 17. Here he began studying drama at a French government
sponsored drama school.
He joined
a travelling theatre company and performed all over France, making the jump to
movie acting with Costa Gavras' Claire de Femme in 1979.
He first
gained critical acclaim in Luc Besson's Le Dernier Combat in the decidedly
supporting role of a swordsman. , and went on to collaborate with Besson in several
subsequent films.
A second
outing with the director, Subway, provided another brief part. But Besson
and Reno formed a creative attachment and the director provided a breakout role,
the second male lead, in The Big Blue. As Enzo Molinari, a macho champion
free diver who fights off competition from an old friend and rival (Jean-Marc
Barr), he received critical praise.
But it
was their next teaming, La Femme Nikita, that brought the bearded actor to
American attention. Cast as the partner-in-crime to Annie Parillaud's title
character, Reno portrayed a character that established the tone of his screen
persona, the ability to be cool, calculating and amoral yet retaining the
impression that a human being lived behind those brown eyes. He was
particularly outstanding in Besson's other thriller, Leon, where he
portrayed an immigrant mob hit man who finds his soul saving the life of a teenager
(Natalie Portman) being pursued by a dirty DEA agent (Gary
Oldman).
At the
moment he's a hot actor, having starred in Jean-Marie Poire's box office smash
comedy Les Visiteurs, as well as Brian DePalma's Mission: Impossible,
Paul Weiland's romantic comedy For Roseanna, and in Lawrence Kasdan's
French Kiss, with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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General
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Jean
Reno - Projector - Biography
