Charlotte Rampling

Rampling made her stage debut at the age of 14, singing French chansons with her sister at Bernays Institute in Stanmore.[14] She began her career as a model and first appeared in a Cadbury advertisement. She was working as a secretary when she was noticed by a casting agent in the same building.[15] Her first screen appearance, which was uncredited, was as a water skier in Richard Lester's film The Knack ...and How to Get It. She also appeared as an extra in Lester's next directorial outing, the Beatles film A Hard Day's Night (1964).[16] In 1965, she was cast in the role of Meredith in the film Georgy Girl and was given a role by John Boulting in the comedy Rotten to the Core. In 1967, she starred opposite Yul Brynner in the adventure film The Long Duel. She also appeared alongside Franco Nero in the Italian film Sardinia Kidnapped (Sequestro di persona) (1968), directed by Gianfranco Mingozzi.[17]

On television, Rampling played the gunfighter Hana Wilde in "The Superlative Seven," a 1967 episode of The Avengers.[18] In 1969, she starred opposite Sam Waterston in the romance-drama Three, and in 1972, she starred opposite Robert Blake in the drama Corky and portrayed Anne Boleyn in the costume drama Henry VIII and His Six Wives. After this, her acting career blossomed in both English and French cinema.

Despite an early flurry of success, she told The Independent: "We weren't happy. It was a nightmare, breaking the rules and all that. Everyone seemed to be having fun, but they were taking so many drugs they wouldn't know it anyway."[19]

Rampling at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival

Rampling has performed controversial roles. In 1969, in Luchino Visconti's The Damned (La Caduta degli dei), she played a young wife sent to a Nazi concentration camp. Critics praised her performance, and it cast her in a whole new image: mysterious, sensitive, and ultimately tragic. "The Look," as her co-star Dirk Bogarde called it, became her trademark.[20]

She appeared nude in the cult classic Vanishing Point, in a scene deleted from the U.S. theatrical release (included in the U.K. release). Lead actor Barry Newman remarked that the scene was of aid in the allegorical lilt of the film.

In 1974's The Night Porter, in which she again appears alongside Dirk Bogarde, she plays a former concentration camp inmate who, after World War II, reunites with a former camp guard (Bogarde) with whom she had had an ambiguous, sadomasochistic relationship. Their relationship resumes, and she becomes his mistress and victim once again. In Max mon amour, she played a woman who falls in love with a chimpanzee. In 1974, she posed nude for Playboy photographs by Helmut Newton.[21] In 1976 she co-presented for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Award with Anthony Hopkins at the 48th Academy Awards.[22]

In 1974, Rampling starred in John Boorman's science-fiction film Zardoz opposite Sean Connery. She also starred with Peter O'Toole in Foxtrot (1976) and with Richard Harris in Orca (1977). She gained recognition from American audiences in a remake of Raymond Chandler's detective story Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and later with Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and in The Verdict (1982), an acclaimed drama directed by Sidney Lumet that starred Paul Newman.

Rampling starred in Claude Lelouch's 1984 film Viva la vie (Long Live Life), before going on to star in the cult-film Max, Mon Amour (1986), and appear in the thriller Angel Heart (1987). For a decade she withdrew from the public eye due to depression. In the late 1990s, she appeared in The Wings of the Dove (1997), played Miss Havisham in a BBC television adaptation of Great Expectations (1998), and starred in the film adaptation of Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard (1999), directed by Michael Cacoyannis.. In 1997, she was a member of jury at the 54th Venice International Film Festival.

Rampling at the 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009

Rampling credits François Ozon with drawing her back to film in the 2000s, a period when she came to terms with the death of her elder sister Sarah who, after giving birth prematurely in 1966, died by suicide at 23. "I thought that after such a long time of not letting her be with me," she told The Guardian, "I would like to bring her back into my life."[20] The character she played in Ozon's Swimming Pool (2003), Sarah Morton, was named in her sister's honour.

For most of Rampling's life, she would say only that her sister had died of a brain haemorrhage; when she and her father learned of Sarah’s death, they agreed they would never let her mother know the truth. They kept their secret until Rampling's mother died in 2001.[20]

Rampling appeared in Tony Scott's Spy Game (2001), and she earned César Award nominations for Under the Sand (2000), Swimming Pool (2003), and Lemming (2005). At 59, she appeared in Laurent Cantet's Heading South (Vers le Sud), a 2005 film about sexual tourism. She appeared as Ellen, a professor of French literature, who holidays in 1970s Haiti to get the sexual attention she does not get at home.

On her choice of roles, Rampling said, "I generally don't make films to entertain people. I choose the parts that challenge me to break through my own barriers. A need to devour, punish, humiliate or surrender seems to be a primal part of human nature, and it's certainly a big part of sex. To discover what normal means, you have to surf a tide of weirdness."

The actress has continued to work in sexually provocative films, such as Basic Instinct 2 (2006). In 2008, she portrayed Countess Spencer, the mother of Keira Knightley's title character, in The Duchess and played the High Priestess in post-apocalyptic thriller Babylon A.D.. In 2002, she recorded an album titled Comme Une Femme, or As A Woman. It is in both French and English, and includes passages that are spoken word as well as selections which Rampling sang.. In February 2006, Rampling was named as the jury president at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival.

She has been seen on the covers of Vogue, Interview and Elle magazines and CRUSHfanzine. In 2009, she posed nude in front of the Mona Lisa for Juergen Teller.[23] In 2009, Rampling appeared in Todd Solondz's Life During Wartime.

In 2010, she completed filming Cleanskin, a terrorist thriller, and played Miss Emily in the dystopian romantic fantasy Never Let Me Go.[24][25] She also appeared as Helena in the dance drama StreetDance 3D and the nun Mary in The Mill and the Cross with Michael York and Rutger Hauer. In 2011, she appeared in Lars Von Trier's Melancholia. For her role in the 2012 miniseries Restless, Rampling was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2013, she appeared as Dr. Evelyn Vogel in the final season of Dexter.[26] Rampling also appeared as Alice in the drama Jeune et Jolie and the elderly Adriana do Prado in Night Train to Lisbon. Other television roles include the ITV drama Broadchurch (2015)[27] and the BBC drama London Spy (2015). In 2014, she was named the new face of NARS Cosmetics to launch their new lipstick campaign.[28]

In 2015, Rampling starred opposite Tom Courtenay in Andrew Haigh's 45 Years.[29][30] The film is about a couple preparing to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary when new information regarding the husband's missing previous lover arises. 45 Years was screened in the main competition section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.[31][32] She won the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Tom Courtenay won the Silver Bear for Best Actor.[33] For this role, she also won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress,[34] the European Film Award for Best Actress, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and also received nominations for the BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a British Independent Film and the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress.

In 2016, Rampling accused those boycotting that year's Academy Awards ceremony of hostility towards Caucasians.[35] Her comments were called "offensive, outrageous and ignorant" by Chelsea Clinton, while they were defended by Clint Eastwood. Rampling later apologised for her comments and expressed regret that her statements were misinterpreted.[36][37]

That same year, Rampling backed children's fairytales app, GivingTales, in aid of UNICEF together with Roger Moore, Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor, Joan Collins, Joanna Lumley, Michael Caine, David Walliams, Paul McKenna and Michael Ball.[38]

In 2017, Rampling co-starred as Veronica Ford with Jim Broadbent and Emily Mortimer in The Sense of an Ending, which was based on the novel by Julian Barnes.[39][40] It had its world premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2017.[41] Her next film was in Andrea Pallaoro's Hannah, where she portrayed the title role of the wife of a man imprisoned on uncertain charges. For her role, she was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actress award at the 74th Venice International Film Festival.[6]

Rampling starred opposite Alicia Vikander and Eva Green in Euphoria, directed by Lisa Langseth.[42]

In January 2019, Rampling was cast as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam in the upcoming Denis Villeneuve adaptation of Dune alongside Timothée Chalamet in the leading role.[43]

• Roman Polanski wanted Rampling to be cast in Cul-de-sac (1966) but her agent turned it down. Jacqueline Bisset later took the role.
• She was also considered for a role in The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973) with Ryan O'Neal. She later turned it down and Jacqueline Bisset took the role instead.
• Director Tim Burstall met her for a title role in Eliza Fraser (1976), but she did not feel as though she could consider herself a comedy actress, and later turned it down. Susannah York later took the role.
• She was considered for a role as Sarah Woodruff in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), but John Fowles was not happy about her acting in the 1974 film The Night Porter. She later turned down the role.