Items19The creator’s order
  1. 1Penélope CruzPenélope CruzBorn 28 Apr 1974Compare Cruz's resourceful Raimunda in the Spanish-language Volver (2006) with the disruptive artist Maria Elena in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), where she moves between Spanish and English. Both characters can dominate a room, but the first channels that energy into keeping a family going and…0i
  2. 2Antonio BanderasAntonio BanderasBorn 10 Aug 1960Pain and Glory (2019), in Spanish, gives Banderas a filmmaker conserving his energy and confronting memories. Desperado (1995), largely in English, turns him into an expansive action hero. The contrast is useful precisely because language is only part of it: scale, physicality and the kind of…0i
  3. 3Juliette BinocheJuliette BinocheBorn 9 Mar 1964Juliette Binoche's inward-looking Julie in the French-language Three Colours: Blue (1993) and her caring nurse Hana in the English-language The English Patient (1996) offer different responses to loss. Her attention remains compelling in both, whether a character is trying to withdraw from the…0i
  4. 4Marion CotillardMarion CotillardBorn 30 Sept 1975Marion Cotillard moves from the contemporary French of Two Days, One Night (2014) to Shakespeare's English in Macbeth (2015). Sandra must repeatedly ask colleagues for help; Lady Macbeth tries to shape another person's resolve. It is a revealing double bill about how her voice and stillness work…0i
  5. 5Léa SeydouxLéa SeydouxBorn 1 Jul 1985Léa Seydoux's Emma in the French-language Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) and Madeleine Swann in No Time to Die (2021), performed chiefly in English, belong to very different scales of romance. Compare the intimate social observation of the former with the latter's guarded emotions inside a Bond…0i
  6. 6Vincent CasselVincent CasselBorn 23 Nov 1966Vincent Cassel's restless Vinz in La Haine (1995) speaks from within a sharply defined French social world. In Eastern Promises (2007), English and Russian help place his volatile Kirill in London's criminal underworld. Both are violent dramas, but the contrast between youthful posturing and…0i
  7. 7Tahar RahimTahar RahimBorn 4 Jul 1981Tahar Rahim's breakthrough in A Prophet (2009) places French, Arabic and Corsican inside a prison's power structure. The Mauritanian (2021) makes English central to a very different story of imprisonment. Compare the watchfulness of his fictional Malik with Mohamedou Ould Slahi's attempts to make…0i
  8. 8Matthias SchoenaertsMatthias SchoenaertsBorn 8 Dec 1977Matthias Schoenaerts brings a blunt physical presence to the French-language Rust and Bone (2012), then a patient steadiness to English-speaking Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd (2015). The useful comparison is how much weight he gives a pause: it can suggest an inability to articulate…0i
  9. 9Daniel BrühlDaniel BrühlBorn 16 Jun 1978Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), in German, asks Daniel Brühl to make an elaborate deception grow from a son's affection. Rush (2013), largely in English, gives him the terse precision of racing driver Niki Lauda. The change in rhythm is striking, from anxious improvisation around a family to a…0i
  10. 10Christoph WaltzChristoph WaltzBorn 4 Oct 1956Christoph Waltz makes switching between German, French and English part of Hans Landa's control in Inglourious Basterds (2009). For a different setting, try the English-language Carnage (2011), where polished conversation becomes domestic combat. His appeal across both is the distance between a…0i