Early life Wilson is the son of
Georges Wilson, who was an actor, theatrical manager and director of the
Théâtre National Populaire. As a teenager, he had little interest in the French theatre and aimed to become an "American actor" and appear in Hollywood pictures. He studied acting at the
Drama Centre London to learn English. He played his first movie role in the 1977 American film
Julia, directed by
Fred Zinnemann. Five years later, he played his first starring role in another film by Zinneman,
Five Days One Summer, opposite
Sean Connery. But the film was not a commercial success, and neither was
Sahara in which Wilson co-starred with
Brooke Shields. Wilson ultimately found success in his home country: during the 1980s, he became popular with French audiences by appearing in successful films such as
La Boum 2,
The Public Woman and
Rendez-vous. At the time, he was often cast either as tormented characters or in romantic parts, although he found himself more convincing in the former kind of roles. Wilson screen tested for
The Living Daylights (1987) for the role of
James Bond, appearing in test footage opposite
Maryam d'Abo (the
Bond girl in
The Living Daylights) as
Tatiana Romanova, re-enacting scenes from
From Russia with Love (1963). In 1991, Wilson was featured in a series of
Calvin Klein ads for its Eternity perfume brand, featuring
Christy Turlington, reuniting for a poster ad in 1998.
Career and Lambert Wilson at the
2005 Cannes Film Festival In musical theatre Wilson has appeared as Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm in the 1995
National Theatre London production of
A Little Night Music, where "every word and note was fiercely projected", and of which a recording was later issued. In 2007 he was Voltaire/Pangloss (bilingually) in
Robert Carsen's production of
Candide at the
Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. He appeared as Eric Thomson in
Resnais's
2003 film version of the 1925 comédie musicale
Pas sur la bouche by
Yvain. Wilson released
Musicals on the
EMI label in 1989 (re-issued in 2004), with
John McGlinn conducting
Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. It features him singing songs of the American Musical Theatre catalogue, those well-known ("
Maria" from
West Side Story, "There But For You Go I" from Lerner & Loewe's
Brigadoon, "
The Cafe Song" from
Les Misérables, "Johanna" from
Stephen Sondheim's
Sweeney Todd), rare ("Love Song" from
Kurt Weill and
Alan Jay Lerner's
Love Life, "It Must Be So" from
Leonard Bernstein's
Candide, and "Silly People", which was cut from Sondheim's
A Little Night Music), and those in-between ("Finishing the Hat" from
Sunday in the Park with George, "You Do Something to Me" from
Cole Porter's
Fifty Million Frenchmen, "Never Will I Marry" from
Frank Loesser's
Greenwillow). He has directed stage presentations of
Alfred de Musset's
Les Caprices de Marianne starring Laure Marsac at Paris'
Bouffes du Nord as well as
Jean Racine's
Bérénice starring
Kristin Scott Thomas and Didier Sandre at
Avignon and then
Chaillot. In 1989, his performance as
Abbé Pierre in the film ''
Hiver 54, l'abbé Pierre, for which he received the Jean Gabin prize, won him critical accolades. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, his screen career suffered from a series of box office failures, such as The Possessed and El Dorado''. He later said that the French producers had come, at the time, to regard him as "box office poison". He eventually won back the favour of French audiences by appearing in the successful comedies
Same Old Song (1997) and
Jet Set (2000). Wilson was cast in the role of
The Merovingian in
The Matrix Reloaded (2002) and
The Matrix Revolutions (2003), perhaps his best-known role in the American cinema. Being completely fluent in English, his strong French accent in the film is fabricated for the role.
Recent years In November 2012, he was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2012
International Film Festival of Marrakech. In April 2013, Wilson was invited by
MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) to visit Haiti in the capacity of helping with various UN-backed environment and cultural programmes. He was the master of ceremonies for the opening and closing ceremonies of the
2014 and
2015 Cannes Film Festival. In February 2016, he released a tribute album called
Wilson chante Montand to the singer
Yves Montand to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of the artist. Among the 17 tracks on the album there is
Mais qu’est-ce que j’ai ? which was composed by
Henri Betti with the lyrics by
Édith Piaf in 1947. The musical arrangements of the 17 songs were made by Bruno Fontaine. Also in 2016, he portrayed
Jacques Cousteau in the biopic
The Odyssey. Wilson's commitment to safeguarding the environment is manifest in his support of Greenpeace and Agir pour l'Environnement amongst others. He works on behalf of the Fondation Abbé-Pierre and the
Mouvement Emmaüs in France to eradicate hunger and poverty. Wilson is an ambassador for Les Toiles Enchantées (an association that brings contemporary cinema to hospitals and hospices for children), and
parrain (patron) for a proposed new cinema at the
Institut Français in London. Wilson is Chevalier and Officier des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier and Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite. He was raised to Commandeur de l’Ordre du Mérite by President
Emmanuel Macron in 2017. In January 2018 he engaged to assist the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in communications regarding work to eradicate world hunger and poverty ("Working for Zero Hunger"). The same year he starred in
Volontaire by
Hélène Fillières. In 2021, Wilson reprised his role of The Merovingian from
The Matrix franchise in
The Matrix Resurrections. ==Filmography==