Bérénice Bejo (; born 7 July 1976) is a French-Argentine actress best known for playing Christiana in A Knight's Tale (2001) and Peppy Miller in The Artist (2011). Her work in the latter earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won her the César Award for Best Actress. For her performance in The Past, she won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 and was nominated for a César.
Bejo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is the daughter of Argentine filmmaker Miguel Bejo and his wife Silvia, a lawyer. When she was three, her family moved to France, escaping from Argentina's most recent civil-military dictatorship (1976âÂÂ1983). Her father enrolled her at the school of Les Enfants Terribles theater.
In 2006 she starred in ', where she met director Michel Hazanavicius, whom she later married. They have two children, Lucien and Gloria.
In 2001 Bejo made her American film debut, playing the role of Christiana in A Knight's Tale opposite Heath Ledger. Christiana is a lady-in-waiting to Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon).
In 2002 she toured in France with Marie-France Pisier and Guillaume Depardieu.
In 2003 Bejo starred as Olivia in 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman by Laurent Bouhnik.
Under the direction of Steve Suissa, she seduces Stephane Freiss and Titoff in The Grand Role (2004), a comedy about the world of actors, and she also starred in Cavalcade (2005), a drama dealing with the theme of disability.
In 2006 she appeared alongside Jean Dujardin in OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies by Michel Hazanavicius. This was the first collaboration of the trio.
In 2007 she made an appearance in the short film La Pomme d'Adam.
In 2008 she appeared in two romantic comedies: Modern Love Bouquet and Stéphane Kazandjian. That same year, she gave birth to her first child by Hazanavicius.
In 2009 she participated in the documentary by , Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno. The documentary reconstructs Clouzot's film, alternating between scenes from the 1964 film and dialogue readings between Jacques Gamblin (for Serge Reggiani) and Bejo (for Romy Schneider).
In the 2011 film The Artist, which was directed by Hazanavicius and stars Dujardin, Bejo plays Peppy Miller, a 1920s film actress. Her performance was critically acclaimed, receiving the César Award for Best Actress and several award nominations: the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress â Motion Picture award, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2012 she was announced as the host of the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. She voiced the role of Mérida in the French dub of the Disney/Pixar animated film Brave. In June 2012 Bejo was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The same month, she received the Prix Romy Schneider.