Sylvie Testud
Sylvie Testud (born 17 January 1971) is a French actress whose film career began in 1991. She won the César Award for Most Promising Actress for Murderous Maids (2000), the César Award for Best Actress for Fear and Trembling (2003), and the European Film Award for Best Actress for Lourdes (2009). Her other film roles include Beyond Silence (1996), La Vie en Rose (2007), and French Women (2014).
Sylvie Testud

Georges Biard · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Born
- 1971. · Lyon.
- Nationality
- France.
- Occupation
- actress, writer, novelist, screenwriter, audiobook narrator and director.
- Education
- Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique and Cours Florent.
- Honours
- Knight of the Legion of Honour, Knight of the National Order of Merit, Officer of Arts and Letters and European Film Award for Best Actress.
- Languages
- French.
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Documentary summary
Sylvie Testud (born 17 January 1971) is a French actress whose film career began in 1991. She won the César Award for Most Promising Actress for Murderous Maids (2000), the César Award for Best Actress for Fear and Trembling (2003), and the European Film Award for Best Actress for Lourdes (2009). Her other film roles include Beyond Silence (1996), La Vie en Rose (2007), and French Women (2014).
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Authority files
wikidata · Q242526 · wikipedia · Sylvie Testud
In this article
Life and career
Life and career
Sylvie Testud studied at Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique and Cours Florent. The recorded working language is French. Distinctions recorded are Knight of the Legion of Honour, Knight of the National Order of Merit, Officer of Arts and Letters and European Film Award for Best Actress.
Testud grew up in the La Croix-Rousse quarter of Lyon, France. This was an area with many Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian immigrants. Her mother immigrated from Italy in the 1960s. Her French father left the family when Sylvie was just two years old. In 1985, when she was 14, she saw Charlotte Gainsbourg in her role of the complex young girl in L'Effrontée, a film directed by Claude Miller, identified with Gainsbourg, and so took drama classes in Lyon with the actor and director Christian Taponard. In 1989, she moved to Paris and spent three years at the Conservatoire (CNSAD). In the early and mid 1990s, she landed her first small roles in films like L'Histoire du garçon qui voulait qu'on l'embrasse, directed by Philippe Harel, and Love, etc., directed by Marion Vernoux. In 1997 she had great success in Germany with Caroline Link's Jenseits der Stille for which she learned German, sign language, and the clarinet. In 1998 she had her first major role in French cinema playing Béa in Thomas Vincent's Karnaval. In 2000 she starred in Chantal Akerman's La Captive, an adaptation of La Prisonière, the fifth part of Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. In 2001 she won the César Award for Most Promising Actress for her portrayal of Christine Papin, one of the Papin sisters, in Les Blessures assassines (English title: Murderous Maids). The story concerned a young servant woman found guilty of the murder, with her sister's help, of her employer's wife and daughter; it had made sensational headlines in France in 1933. In 2003, she published the autobiographical book Il n'y a pas beaucoup d'étoiles ce soir, with anecdotes of her day-to-day life as an actress. The French edition featured a cover designed by her sister Ghislaine. One of her most noted performances was as the star of the film Stupeur et tremblements, adapted from the novel by Amélie Nothomb, for which she was awarded a César and a Lumière Award for Best Actress in 2004. She plays a woman struggling with the difference in culture between the Japanese business world and the western, Belgian world, from which she comes. In 2005 or 2006 she returned to her native Lyon (to the Théâtre de la Croix Rousse), where she played the rôle of Edith in Philippe Faure's adaptation of Stefan Zweig's La Pitié dangereuse. She starred in 2007's two-time Academy Award-winning film La Vie en rose, as Momone, Edith Piaf's best friend. In the 2008 film Sagan, she portrayed the writer Françoise Sagan, earning unanimous praise for her hauntingly accurate portrayal and for which she was again nominated for the César for best actress. She was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre national du Mérite in March 2009. She has a son, Ruben, born on 15 February 2005, and a daughter Esther, born in January 2011 with the same partner, whose name she did not make public. In 2012, she participated in Rendez-vous en terre inconnue.
Decorations
Decorations
Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2016)

Sylvie Testud à la cérémonie des étoiles d'or du cinéma
Georges Biard

Sylvie Testud dans Gamines, un film d'Eleonore Faucher
Pascal Chantier · Gamines
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Sylvie Testud”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q242526: Sylvie Testud
Unverified · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Paris Match No. 2834, September 2003
- 2.Décret du 14 novembre 2008 portant promotion et nomination. JORF. 2008. 266. 17476. 15 November 2008.
- 3.Sylvie Testud a accouché - Sylvie Testud a accouché. Parismatch.com.
- 4.Annest, Tess. Sylvie Testud séparée du père de ses enfants, elle a "ouvert les yeux" : qui est son nouveau compagnon ?. Journaldesfemmes.fr. 15 December 2022.
- 5.Culturecommunication.gouv.fr. Flux.
References
Citations
References
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reference work
Partially resolvedauthority record
Unverified
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
42,307 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Sylvia VrethammarPerson
- Sylvie BodorováPerson
- Sylvie Brunet-GrupposoPerson
- Sylvie CourvoisierPerson
- Sylvie ValayrePerson
- Sylvie VartanPerson
- Sylvius Leopold WeissPerson
- Sylwia GrzeszczakPerson
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