Jean-Pierre Léaud

Jean-Pierre Léaud
Jean-Pierre Léaud at the 2000 César Awards
Born	(1944-05-28) 28 May 1944 (age 72) Paris, France
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1958–present
Awards	Silver Bear for Best Actor (Berlin International Film Festival) 1966 Masculin Féminin Best Actor (Thessaloniki Film Festival) 1996 Pour rire! Honorary César (César Awards) 2000 FIPRESCI Prize 2001 The Pornographer

Jean-Pierre Léaud (French: [ʒɑ̃pjɛʁ le.o]; born 28 May 1944) is a French actor, best known for playing Antoine Doinel in François Truffaut's series of films about that character, beginning with The 400 Blows in 1959. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard, and is a notable figure of the French New Wave.

Born in Paris, Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in The 400 Blows. To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, had earlier recommended the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux.

Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared the previous year with Jean Marais in Georges Lampin's La Tour prends garde! He recognized traits they both shared, "for example a certain suffering with regard to the family...With, however, this fundamental difference: though we were both rebels, we hadn't expressed our rebellion in the same way. I preferred to cover up and lie. Jean-Pierre, on the contrary, seeks to hurt, shock and wants it to be known...Why? Because he's unruly, while I was sly. Because his excitability requires that things happen to him, and when they don't occur quickly enough, he provokes them.". In his final interview, Truffaut mentioned he was happy with how Léaud improvised within the flexibly written script.