The French-Danish actor Niels Arestrup has died, aged 75, his wife announced to Agence France-Presse on Sunday, December 1. "I have the extreme pain to announce the death of my husband, the immense actor Niels Arestrup, at the end of a courageous fight against illness. He passed away surrounded by the love of his family," wrote Isabelle Le Nouvel, who was also his press attaché, in a statement.
A key figure in Jacques Audiard's films (The Beat that My Heart Skipped in 2005 and A Prophet in 2009, each of which won him a César – French cinema's most prestigious award – for Best Supporting Actor), in 2016 he also starred in the political drama series Baron Noir. In 2014, he won a third César for Best Supporting Actor for The French Minister, an adaptation of a comic strip about French diplomacy, as well as a Molière in 2020.
"We were dazzled by the strength of his acting and his magnetic presence in front of the cameras of Jacques Audiard, Bertrand Tavernier, Julian Schnabel or Albert Dupontel. He will remain one of our greatest actors," wrote French Culture Minister Rachida Dati on the X.
Arestrup owes his name to a Danish father who tried to emigrate to the US, but stopped off in France to get married. He grew up in a very modest environment in the Paris suburbs. "You can imagine that as the son of a worker in Bagnolet in the 1950s, show business, theater and cinema were not at all on my mind," he told Le Figaro in 2021.
But he developed a passion for the theater, taking classes with the French actress Tania Balachova. He remained faithful to the stage for almost half a century, and largely rejected celebrity. "When I started out in the business, theater directors would choose a play, then ask themselves about the cast. Now it's the other way round: They look first for a star and, only then, the play that might go with it," he lamented in Le Monde in 2019.
From 1989 to 1993, he himself directed a theater, the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris's 10th arrondissement. His most recent film role was as a conductor in Divertimento in 2023.
His career has also been marred by accusations of violence against actresses during filming or rehearsals, by Isabelle Adjani and Myriam Boyer among others. "It has stuck to me," he admitted when interviewed by Libération in 2007. He has never been the subject of a complaint.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.