Denis Podalydès
Denis Podalydès is a French actor, scriptwriter, and theatre director. Podalydès has appeared in more than 140 films and television shows since 1989. He starred in The Officers' Ward, which was entered into the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.
Podalydès has been nominated for four César Awards: Best Supporting Actor for Summer Things, The Conquest, and Sorry Angel, and Best Original Screenplay for Granny's Funeral. He is the younger brother of filmmaker Bruno Podalydès, with whom he frequently collaborates.
Career
Born to a family of Greek descent, Podalydès a former student of the Paris Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique, and became a pensionnaire of the Comédie-Française in 1997, and then a sociétaire in 2000, now considered as one of their major actors. He became the 505th sociétaire on 1st January 2000. Before joining that company he had appeared in Sophonisbe by Corneille, L'Épreuve and Les Sincères by Marivaux, La Double Inconstance by Marivaux and Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, Le Misanthrope by Molière, and Bérénice by Racine, Les Fausses Confidences by Marivaux, and Anatol by Arthur Schnitzler in 1995.Director
From 2006, he began directing for the stage, with several classics: Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, then in 2008 Fantasio by Alfred de Musset.In 2011, with Emmanuel Bourdieu and Éric Ruf, staged Le Cas Jekyll by Christine Montalbetti In February 2013, he directed L'Homme qui se hait, by Emmanuel Bourdieu at the Théâtre national de Chaillot.
In the world of opera, Podalydès directed Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti in 2012 at the Théâtre [des Champs-Élysées]. He followed that in 2017 with Rossini's Le Comte Ory at the Opéra Comique, Paris, and Falstaff at the Opéra de Lille conducted by Antonello Allemandi in May 2023. He directed Faust in May 2025 at the Opéra de Lille in the original 1859 version, with spoken dialogue but without its ballet, which one reviewer compared to Ian Judge's 1985 production for ENO with its "19th century Parisian costumes, top hats and sombre colours, emphasized the dark underbelly of that society".