Actress Cécile de France

Acutally, Cécile de France is de Belge. :D  She was born and raised in Belgium.

Becoming interested in acting as a girl, she decided to pursue an acting career and study theater in Paris.  For three years beginning in 1995, she studied at the thespian academy École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Techniques du Théâtre.

Her early movies in France included 2001's L'Art (délicat) de la séduction  (The Delicate Art of Seduction), in which she played a woman that a car designer eyes with  interest, and 2002's Irène. She became an international star with High Tension, a 2003 horror thriller, in which she deals with a serial killer.

Her later film include 2006's When I Was a Singer, in which she played the Signing Nun (really!), and 2007's A Secret, as the mother of a sickly boy who discovers a half-brother he didn't know he had.  American audiences probably best know her as Monique LaRoche in the 2004 Hollywood version of Around the World in 80 Days - if, in fact, they even saw it (it was not a hit).  She did, though appear in Hereafter, about a journalist who has a near-death experience and consults a man, played by Matt Damon, who can communicate with the dead  Released in 2010, it was directed by Clint Eastwood.

Among her honors are  Best Supporting Actress César in the 2005 ensemble movie Russian Dolls, as a lesbian pretending to be someone's fiancée.

Cécile de France is 42 as of this writing, so her best work is no doubt yet to come.