1. Matthias Schoenaerts made his film debut at the age of 13 in Daens, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
35 Facts About Matthias Schoenaerts
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Matthias Schoenaerts is best known for his roles as Filip in Loft, Jacky Vanmarsenille in the Oscar-nominated Bullhead, and Ali in the BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominee Rust and Bone, for which he won the Cesar Award for Most Promising Actor.
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Matthias Schoenaerts played Eric Deeds in The Drop, Bruno von Falk in Suite Francaise, Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd, Hans Axgil in The Danish Girl, and Uncle Vanya in Red Sparrow.
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Matthias Schoenaerts was born in Antwerp, Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium.
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Matthias Schoenaerts is the son of actor Julien Schoenaerts and Dominique Wiche, a costume designer, translator and French teacher.
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Matthias Schoenaerts is fluent in English, which he learned by watching American movies.
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Matthias Schoenaerts started producing graffiti as a teenager under the pseudonym "Zenith".
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Matthias Schoenaerts went to New York City to collaborate with the Bronx group TATS CRU.
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Matthias Schoenaerts was close to becoming a professional association football player and was on the books of Belgian team Beerschot AC, but gave up when he was 16 years old.
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In 2013, Matthias Schoenaerts said that he was a fan of the Spanish football club FC Barcelona.
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At the age of 13, Matthias Schoenaerts made his film debut with a small role in the 1992 Belgian film Daens, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
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Matthias Schoenaerts's father starred in the film but they did not share any scenes together.
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In 2002, he starred in Dorothee Van Den Berghe's Meisje ; Tom Barman's Any Way the Wind Blows in 2003; Rudolf Mestdagh's Ellektra and Roel Mondelaers and Raf Reyntjens's sci-fi short film A Message from Outer Space, which Matthias Schoenaerts produced in 2004.
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In 2003, Matthias Schoenaerts was named one of "Europe's Shooting Stars" by the European Film Promotion.
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In 2006, Matthias Schoenaerts played Dennis in Hilde Van Mieghem's Love Belongs to Everyone.
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Matthias Schoenaerts had a small role as a member of the Dutch resistance in Paul Verhoeven's Black Book.
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In 2011, Matthias Schoenaerts starred in the Dutch films The Gang of Oss and The President.
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In 2011, Schoenaerts played Jacky Vanmarsenille, the lead role in Bullhead, directed by Michael R Roskam, which was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
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On 22 February 2013, Matthias Schoenaerts won the Cesar Award for Most Promising Actor for his role in Rust and Bone.
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Matthias Schoenaerts produced and starred in the Belgian short film Death of a Shadow, directed by Tom Van Avermaet.
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In 2014, Matthias Schoenaerts appeared alongside Clive Owen, Billy Crudup and again Marion Cotillard in the thriller Blood Ties, in which he played Anthony Scarfo.
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Matthias Schoenaerts played Eric Deeds in The Drop, his second film with Michael R Roskam, starring opposite Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and James Gandolfini.
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Matthias Schoenaerts starred in Alice Winocour's French thriller Disorder, as an ex-soldier suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, for which his performance was highly praised.
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Matthias Schoenaerts played Paul in Luca Guadagnino's erotic thriller A Bigger Splash, starring opposite Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson, and played the art-dealer Hans Axgil in Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl.
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On 28 July 2015, Matthias Schoenaerts was named a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France.
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In 2017, Schoenaerts reteamed with Michael R Roskam in the Belgian film Racer and the Jailbird, in the role of a gangster named Gigi.
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Matthias Schoenaerts worked again with director Thomas Vinterberg in 2018's Kursk, a film about the Kursk submarine disaster of 2000 in which Schoenaerts played Russian Navy captain-lieutenant Mikhail Kalekov.
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In 2018, Matthias Schoenaerts co-starred in Francis Lawrence's spy thriller Red Sparrow in the role of Uncle Vanya opposite Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton and Jeremy Irons.
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Matthias Schoenaerts starred in the Belgian-French film Close Enemies, directed by David Oelhoffen.
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In 2019, Matthias Schoenaerts appeared as Captain Herder in Terrence Malick's A Hidden Life, as Maywood in Steven Soderbergh's The Laundromat, and as Roman Coleman, an inmate who participates in a rehabilitation program centered around training of wild horses in Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre's The Mustang.
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In 2021, Matthias Schoenaerts starred as Peter Flood in Jeremie Guez's Brothers by Blood and as Jurgen in the Flemish TV anthology Lockdown episode "Zuur" alongside him was Veerle Baetens.
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Matthias Schoenaerts's upcoming works include Terrence Malick's The Way of the Wind, Justin Kurzel's Ruin alongside Margot Robbie, and David O Russell's Amsterdam.
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In September 2024 Matthias Schoenaerts was cast in the DC Universe film Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow as the villain Krem of the Yellow Hills, with Milly Alcock starring as the title character.
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Matthias Schoenaerts's directorial debut, Franky, is a documentary about a one-legged childhood friend of his who became an MMA fighter, Franky van Hove.
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On 24 August 2015, it was reported that Matthias Schoenaerts became the co-owner of the Belgian casting agency Hakuna Casting, which focuses on people of ethnic origin.