Background

Gainsbourg was born in London, to English actress and singer Jane Birkin and French actor and singer-song writer Serge Gainsbourg. Gainsbourg was born at the height of her parents' fame as they had made headlines several years earlier with the sexually explicit song Je t'aime... moi non plus and by that point had become notorious for their turbulent relationship and multiple artistic collaborations. As a result her birth and childhood were well publicized.

Her maternal grandmother was actress Judy Campbell and her uncle is the screenwriter Andrew Birkin, who directed her in The Cement Garden. She is a cousin of theatre and opera director Sophie Hunter. Her father was Jewish and her mother is from a Protestant background. Gainsbourg attended École Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel in Paris and Collège Alpin International Beau Soleil in Switzerland. French is Gainsbourg's first language, but she is also fluent in English.

Gainsbourg was raised in Paris alongside her half-sister from her mother's marriage to composer John Barry, Kate Barry, who died in 2013 after an accidental fall out a window. According to Birkin she and Gainsbourg were somewhat neglectful parents, often spending their nights going out to parties and drinking. She has a young brother, Lucien "Lulu" Gainsbourg, born in 1986 from her father's relationship with Bambou. On her father's side she also had two older siblings born from his second marriage to Françoise-Antoinette "Béatrice" Pancrazzi.

By 1980, her parents' relationship had dissolved and her mother left her father for the director Jacques Doillon. Her half sister Lou Doillon was born in 1982 as a result of the union. Gainsbourg would go on to work with her step-father in the film The Temptation of Isabelle in 1985 and later in Amoureuse in 1992 which also starred her real life partner Yvan Attal.

In 1987 she was the target of a bungled kidnapping.

After her parents split, Gainsbourg's father descended into alcoholism, eventually dying of a heart attack in 1991. Gainsbourg remained devoted to preserving his legacy and preserved his home, hoping to eventually turn it into a museum. She eventually abandoned the project and decided to maintain the house as a private residence.

On 5 September 2007, Gainsbourg was rushed to a Paris hospital where she underwent surgery for a cerebral hemorrhage. She had been experiencing headaches since a minor waterskiing accident in the United States several weeks earlier.

Career

Acting

Gainsbourg grew up on film sets as both of her parents were involved in the film industry. She stated that her mother was the one who pushed her into acting, believing that she wanted to be an actress and encouraging her to make her motion picture debut playing Catherine Deneuve's daughter in the film Paroles et musique (1984).

In 1986, Gainsbourg won a César Award for "Most Promising Actress" for L'effrontée. That same year Gainsbourg appeared in the film Charlotte for Ever about a man who develops incestuous desires for his teenage daughter after his wife dies. The film was the subject of great controversy as it was written and directed by Gainsbourg's father Serge Gainsbourg who also took on the role of Gainsbourg's father on screen. Additionally the film was released two years after Gainsbourg had released her debut single Lemon Incest which had similar themes and also was created and sung with her father Serge causing the press to speculate that the material was autobiographical.

In 1988 together with her mother she appeared in a set of films Kung Fu Master and the docu-drama Jane B. by Agnes V. both directed by Agnès Varda.

In 1993, Gainsbourg made her English speaking debut in The Cement Garden, written and directed by her uncle, Andrew Birkin. She made her stage debut in 1994 in David Mamet's Oleanna at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse. In 1996, Gainsbourg starred as the title character in Jane Eyre, a film adaption of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel.

In 2000, she won the César Award for "Best Supporting Actress" for the film La Bûche.

In 2003, Gainsbourg starred in 21 Grams, with Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro. In 2006, Gainsbourg appeared alongside Gael García Bernal in Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. In 2007, she appeared as Claire in the Todd Haynes-directed Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, also contributing a cover of the Dylan song "Just Like a Woman" to the film soundtrack. In 2009, she won the award for Best Actress at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for the film Antichrist. Gainsbourg starred in the French/Australian production, The Tree, released in 2010, and in Lars von Trier's science fiction disaster film, Melancholia. She was on the jury for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2012. In May 2012 Confession of a Child of the Century premiered, where she starred alongside the British musician Pete Doherty.

Gainsbourg collaborated with von Trier once again on his 2013 film Nymphomaniac, in which she plays the lead character. The five-and-a-half-hour film depicts the life of a sex addict from youth to middle age. When asked about the nature of the role, Gainsbourg responded, "The sex scenes weren't so hard. For me it was all the masochistic scenes. Those were embarrassing and, yes, a little humiliating."

Music

Gainsbourg made her musical debut with her father on the song "Lemon Incest" in 1984. The song was incredibly controversial due to lyrics that seemed to imply an incestuous pedophiliac relationship between a father and daughter that was sung by Gainsbourg and her real life father Serge causing people to believe the material was autobiographical. Gainsbourg, who was 13 at the time of the song's release, later stated that she had just begun boarding school and was therefore unaware of the controversy regarding the song until she was much older.

In 1986 she released her debut album Charlotte for Ever, which was produced by her father.

In 2000, Gainsbourg was featured on the Madonna album Music on the track "What It Feels Like For A Girl". There is a lengthy spoken intro by Gainsbourg, taken from the film The Cement Garden, which inspired the title of the song. The track was further remixed for the single version of this song in 2001, with Gainsbourg's The Cement Garden speech repeated during the song.

In 2004, she sang a duet with French pop star Étienne Daho on his single "If".

In 2006, Gainsbourg released her second album 5:55 to critical acclaim and commercial success, reaching the top spot on the French charts and achieving platinum status in the country. In the UK, the album was moderately successful, reaching #78 (The single "The Songs That We Sing" only made #129). Gainsbourg attributed the twenty year break between her debut album and 5:55 as a result of her father's death and her reluctance to explore a musical career without his presence.

In late 2009, Gainsbourg released her third studio album, IRM, which was produced by Beck. One of the influential factors in the album's creative process was her time spent filming Antichrist. Gainsbourg's head injury in 2007 influenced the title of the album "IRM", an abbreviation for the French translation of "magnetic resonance imaging". While receiving a brain scan, she began to think about music. "When I was inside that machine," she said, "it was an escape to think about music. It's rhythm. It was very chaotic."

Her song "Heaven Can Wait" was chosen as the Starbucks iTunes Pick of the Week on 2 March 2010. Her song "Trick Pony" appeared at the beginning of the Grey's Anatomy episode "Perfect Little Accident" (Season 6, Episode 16/airdate: 25 February 2010), is featured on the FIFA 11 soundtrack and was used in the 2012 Teleflora Super Bowl advertisement featuring supermodel Adriana Lima.

In 2011, Gainsbourg released the double album Stage Whisper, a collection of unreleased songs from IRM and live tracks. In 2013, Gainsbourg released a cover version of the song "Hey Joe", recorded with Beck, for the soundtrack of the film Nymphomaniac, in which she is the lead actress. Her career in music influentiates a lot of artists, such as Tove Lo, who cites the simplicity and quirky lyrical content Charlotte's IRM as the main inspiration behind her career in music and said that it "opened a new world" for her sound-wise.

Since 2014, Gainsbourg has been supporting the Hear the World Foundation as ambassador. In her role she is advocating for equal opportunities and better quality of life for people with hearing loss. She is featured in the Hear the World Calendar 2014, sold with all proceeds benefitting the foundation’s projects.

Personal life

Gainsbourg's longtime partner is French-Israeli actor/director Yvan Attal whom she met on the set of the 1991 film Aux yeux du monde. Gainsbourg and Attal are not married and Gainsbourg has attributed her reluctance to marry to the fact that her parents never married. Attal publicly proposed to Gainsbourg on 19 June 2013 during an awards ceremony when he received the French National Order of Merit. However in April 2014 Attal confirmed that they were still unwed with no plans to officially marry. Together they have three children: a son, Ben (b. 1997), and daughters Alice (b. 2002) and Joe (b. 2011).

In 2012 Pete Doherty alleged that he and Gainsbourg had had a fling on the set of Confession of a Child of the Century and she had briefly moved from Paris to London in order to be with him.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1984	Paroles et musique	Charlotte Marker
1985	La tentation d'Isabelle	L'enfant
1985	L'Effrontée	Charlotte Castang	César Award for Most Promising Actress
1986	Charlotte for Ever	Charlotte
1988	Le Petit Amour	Lucy	aka Kung-fu master!
1988	Jane B. par Agnès V.	La fille de J.	Agnès Varda film
1988	The Little Thief	Janine Castang	aka La petite voleuse Nominated — César Award for Best Actress
1990	Il sole anche di notte	Matilda
1991	Merci la vie	Camille Pelleveau
1991	Aux yeux du monde	Juliette Mangin	Éric Rochant film
1992	Amoureuse	Marie	aka The Lover
1993	The Cement Garden	Julie
1994	Grosse Fatigue	Herself	aka Dead Tired
1996	Jane Eyre	Jane Eyre
1996	Anna Oz	Anna Oz	Éric Rochant film
1996	Love, etc.	Marie	Marion Vernoux film Nominated — César Award for Best Actress
1999	The Intruder	Catherine Girard
1999	La Bûche	Milla Robin	aka Season's Beatings César Award for Best Supporting Actress
2000	Passionnément	Alice Almeida	aka Passionately
2000	Nuremberg	Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier	Miniseries
2000	Les Misérables	Fantine	Miniseries
2001	Félix et Lola	Lola	Patrice Leconte film
2001	My Wife Is an Actress	Charlotte	aka Ma Femme est une actrice
2002	La merveilleuse odyssée de l'idiot Toboggan	Voice
2003	21 Grams	Mary Rivers
2004	Une star internationale	Herself	Short film
2004	Ils Se Marièrent et Eurent Beaucoup d'Enfants	Gabrielle	aka ...And They Lived Happily Ever After
2005	L'un reste, l'autre part	Judith	aka One Stays, the Other Leaves
2005	Lemming	Bénédicte Getty
2006	Nuovomondo	Lucy Reed	aka The Golden Door
2006	Prête-moi ta main	Emma	aka I Do/Rent a Wife Nominated — César Award for Best Actress Nominated — Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actress
2006	La Science des rêves	Stéphanie	aka The Science of Sleep
2007	I'm Not There	Claire
2008	The City of Your Final Destination	Arden Langdon
2009	Antichrist	She	Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award Bodil Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Sant Jordi Award for Best Foreign Actress Nominated — Scream Award for Best Actress Nominated — European Film Award for Best Actress Nominated — Robert Festival for Best Actress
2009	Persécution	Sonia
2010	The Tree	Dawn	Nominated — César Award for Best Actress
2011	Melancholia	Claire	Robert Festival for Best Supporting Actress Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated — Bodil Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated — European Film Award for Best Actress
2012	Confession of a Child of the Century	Brigitte
2013	Nymphomaniac	Joe	Bodil Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated — European Film Award for Best Actress
2014	Jacky in Women's Kingdom	La colonelle
2014	Every Thing Will Be Fine	Kate
2014	Samba	Alice	Nominated—Lumières Award for Best Actress
2014	Three Hearts	Sylvie	Nominated—Lumières Award for Best Actress
2014	Incompresa	Madre
2015	Oppenheimer Strategies		Filming
2016	Independence Day: Resurgence	Dr. Catherine Marceaux	Filming
2016	True Crimes		Filming
2017	The Snowman		Filming

Discography

Year	Album details	Peak chart positions										Certifications
		FRA	AUT	BE (Vl)	BE (Wa)	GER	NLD	SWE	SWI	UK	US
1986	Charlotte for Ever Released: 1986 Label:	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2006	5:55 Released: 28 August 2006 Label:	1	41	15	2	38	99	57	12	-	196	FRA: Platinum
2009	IRM Released: 4 December 2009 Label:	4	-	35	8	-	-	46	28	62	69
2011	Stage Whisper Released: 13 December 2011 Label:	84	-	-	98	89	-	-	-	-	-

Awards and nominations

César Award

Year	Category	Nominated work	Result
1985	Most Promising Actress	L'Effrontée	Won
1988	Best Actress	The Little Thief	Nominated
1996	Best Actress	Love, etc.	Nominated
2000	Best Supporting Actress	La Bûche	Won
2006	Best Actress	Prête-moi ta main	Nominated

Year	Awards	Category	Recipient	Outcome
2009	Cannes Film Festival	Best Actress	Antichrist	Won
	Bodil Award	Best Actress		Won
	Sant Jordi Award	Best Foreign Actress		Nominated
	Scream Award	Best Actress		Nominated
	European Film Award	Best Actress		Nominated
	Robert Awards	Best Actress		Nominated
2010	César Awards	Best Actress	The Tree	Nominated
	Robert Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Melancholia	Won
2011	Saturn Awards	Best Supporting Actress		Nominated
	Bodil Award	Best Supporting Actress		Nominated
	European Film Award	Best Actress		Nominated
2013	European Film Award	Best Actress	Nymphomaniac	Nominated
	Bodil Awards	Best Actress		Won
2015	Lumières Award	Best Actress	Samba/Three Hearts	Nominated

Decorations

• Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2016)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]