Marie-Josée Croze

Marie-Josée Croze was an award-winning Canadian actress who appeared in numerous American and French-Canadian films during the 1990s and 2000s. Although she initially wanted to become an artist, in the late '80s Croze switched her focus and began studying acting. She enrolled in acting courses at Montreal's La Veillée-Prospero Theatre workshop and started making a name for herself as a prolific stage actress. By the early '90s Croze started appearing in Canadian-produced films and TV shows, most notably "The Captive" (1998) and "The Hunger" (SciFi, 1997-2000). She landed a small role in the critically lambasted 2000 sci-fi epic "Battlefield Earth," and went on to earn universal acclaim for her appearance in Denys Arcand's 2003 French-Canadian dramedy "The Barbarian Invasions." Croze earned Best Actress honors at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival for her role in the film, which also went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film at that year's Academy Awards. Before long, Hollywood took notice of the promising young actress, and in 2005 Steven Spielberg cast her as a contract killer in his 2005 historical drama "Munich." Although her role in "Munich" was lauded by critics, Croze continued to appear mostly in French-language films over the next several years, most notably the acclaimed thriller "Tell No One" (2006), Julian Schnabel's biographical drama "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," and Arcand's "Le règne de la beauté" (2014). Never one to limit herself, Croze also appeared in the English-language black comedy, "Calvary" (2014). The film, which also starred Chris O'Dowd and Brendan Gleeson, premiered to rave reviews at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.