Jean-Marc Barr

Jean-Marc Barr — Biography

Born in West Germany to a French mother and an American father serving in the US armed forces, he had an itinerant childhood, moving with his family to France in 1968 and then to California in 1974. He studied philosophy at UCLA before continuing at the Paris Conservatoire and the Sorbonne, then trained in acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He began working in French theatre in 1986, and after a small part in John Boorman's Hope and Glory, rose to international attention as free-diver Jacques Mayol in Luc Besson's The Big Blue, which became the top-grossing French film of the 1980s. His 1991 role in Lars von Trier's Europa opened a collaboration and friendship close enough that he became godfather to von Trier's children, and he went on to appear in Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay and Nymphomaniac. He moved into directing in 1999 with Lovers, followed by Too Much Flesh and Being Light, the latter two co-directed with Pascal Arnold. He played the title figure in Blur's "Charmless Man" video and portrayed writer Jack Kerouac in Big Sur. With more than fifty film and television credits, he has also appeared in Turkish productions such as Buğday and İtiraf, and continues working on newer projects including The Pod Generation and King & Conqueror.