Niels Arestrup was born in 1949 to a Danish father and a French mother in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.
In his early 20's, Arestrup began his career in theatre and was taught by some of Europe's most esteemed acting coaches including Tania Balachova. In 1973, he appeared in his first film Miss O'Gynie et les hommes fleurs and was frequently seen in supporting roles in film and television. Arestrup then began playing lead roles in films such as The Future Is Woman (1984), Foreign City (1988) and Meeting Venus (1991), which also starred Glenn Close.
In 2006, Arestrup won his first César Award (France's Oscar®) for Best Supporting Actor in Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped, which won seven other Césars including Best Film. The following year, Arestrup directed his first feature film The Candidate, which he starred in alongside Yvan Attal and Maurice Bénichou. In 2009, Arestrup reunited with Audiard in the feature film A Prophet, which garnered nine César awards (including Best Film, Best Director and another Best Supporting Actor award for Arestrup). The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film awards at the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards®. It also won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival of that year. Arestrup went on to win another Best Supporting Actor César for his work in The French Minister (2013).
Other notable films of his include the Academy Award®-nominated film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), which won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film; Sarah's Key (2010); and War Horse (2011), which was directed by Steven Spielberg and earned 6 Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture.
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