from Toronto Sun / by Liz Braun

Actress earns multiple award noms for latest drama

You can expect to see Marion Cotillard at the Academy Awards in February.

The French actress — who already has an Oscar (as well as a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Cesar) for her performance a few years ago as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose — now stars in Rust and Bone, a drama that may net her another Oscar nod. As awards season begins, she’s already been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and for a Golden Globe for her performance, and Rust and Bone is also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

Despite the accolades, “When I start working on a project, I feel like I’ma beginner again,” she says.

“Nervous. Of course, I have more experience now, but because I love to jump on the unknown each time, it’s hard to start all over again. And that’s what I love about this job.”

The film — loosely based on the work of Canadian writer Craig Davidson — is a love story about damaged people. Cotillard, 37, plays a whale trainer working at the marine theme park in Antibes. She is badly injured on the job. Co-star Matthias Schoenaerts portrays the bareknuckle fighter she relies upon after her accident.

She works with Schoenaerts again in the upcoming Blood Ties (2013), a film about organized crime in the ’70s that also stars Mila Kunis, Zoe Saldana, Clive Owen and James Caan.

These days, Cotillard juggles parenthood with work commitments on both sides of the ocean.

She and her partner, actor/filmmaker Guillaume Canet (who directed Blood Ties) have a 20-month-old son.

“It’s hectic,” she understates, smiling. “My life is in movement, constant movement, and I love it, but sometimes you just need to relax and not work too much – and I want to see my son every day of my life and do nothing and just stare at him.”

Success has led to a new-found visibility, and Cotillard concedes that it can be a nuisance to be hounded by paparazzi. But she’s not complaining.

“We turn it into a lot of fun, like when I have to go to the airport and suddenly my publicist says, ‘Oh, my God, paparazzi,’ and I look like s—, so I put some makeup on. And that’s ridiculous! To put makepup on just to take a plane? So we make fun of it.”

She adds, “It’s not difficult. Difficult is no money to feed your kids. Difficult is something totally different… Sometimes it’s annoying, sometimes when you want to have time for yourself and your family it can be more than annoying, but you have to take a little step back … My life is amazing and I shouldn’t complain.”

Above all, Cotillard continues to love what she does and be challenged by her work.

“I love it when I0m not sure I’m gonna be good. I love it even when I’m not sure I’m going to be able to give life or find authenticity, and sometimes it doesn’t work. But when it does, it’s a lot of fun.”

from Philadelphia Daily News / by Howard Gensler

MARION COTILLARD has been working as an actress since she was a teenager, but it was her Oscar-winning performance as Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose” that brought her to the attention of American audiences – and Hollywood filmmakers.

Since then she’s worked with directors such as Michael Mann (“Public Enemies”), Woody Allen (“Midnight in Paris”), Steven Soderbergh (“Contagion”) and Christopher Nolan (“Inception,” “The Dark Knight Rises”).

In “Rust and Bone,” she returns to France for an intimate relationship movie about a whale trainer and the fighter who sort of nurses her back to health after an accident at the Sea World-like water show where she works.

The Daily News spoke with Cotillard at the Intercontinental Hotel in September during the Toronto International Film Festival.

She said her shooting schedule was so tight when “Rust and Bone” was filmed that she didn’t have time for her usual amount of preparation.

“I had like three or four days of training,” she said, “learning the choreography and approaching the orcas and feeding them. It was kind of easy for me, but I don’t have a reference.

“I love wild animals,” she added, “but it was hard to consider the whales as wild when they’re in a swimming pool. But that’s another subject.”

After a few big movies, Cotillard was attracted to the intimacy and rawness of the “Rust and Bone” script.

“I was very moved,” she said. “I thought it was a very unusual love story – a beautiful one. And I was very excited by the subject and the vision that [director] Jacques Audiard ["A Prophet"] would have of it. Because I saw all his movies, and he had never given his vision of a love story before.

“Normally, I hate to do love scenes. I don’t know who loves doing them. But in this movie,” Cotillard said, “it was not so hard because the flesh, the blood, the body, the love, is the subject of the movie. And it’s what my character needs too. So it was actually kind of easy to do.

“I love the first love scene – it’s a mix of drama and comedy and it’s very moving, and at the same time you want to laugh because of the situation. And also, Matthias [Schoenaerts] is an amazing actor to work with. In a way I was so happy for my character. I know it’s a little weird to talk that way about a character, but I was.”

Cotillard has two more films completed and awaiting release, including “Blood Ties” with director Guillaume Canet, her longtime boyfriend and the father of her son, Marcel. At the moment, though, there are no new projects on the horizon.

After completing 11 features since 2010, Cotillard is on holiday, grateful that her career has gone so well that she has the opportunity to unwind.

“I decided to take some time off without having to think about what’s next,” she said, “because otherwise it’s not really time off. . . . Now I’m really looking forward to finding something that will give me the desire to go back to work.”