Oscar distinctions: Second French actress to win Best Actress Oscar after Simone Signoret for Room At The Top in 1959. First winner for a performance in the French language.

Pedigree: Father Jean-Claude Cotillard is an actor and teacher while mother Niseema Theillaud is an actress and drama teacher. Has two younger brothers, a sculptor and a writer, who are identical twins.

Current companion: Guillaume Canet, her co-star in Love Me If You Dare

Film resume: Appeared in about 30 movies (mostly French) plus various French TV series. First role reportedly in 1993 in an episode of the 1990s Canadian-French action series, Highlander.

Height: 1.69m

Edith Piaf's height: 1.47m

Suffers for art by: Stooping, hunching and speaking with a crackling voice in La Vie En Rose. She shaved her hairline back and shaved off her eyebrows which were later drawn in. Mindful of playing a legend recognisable even through silhouette, Cotillard said: 'From the start, I knew I didn't want just to imitate her. My aim was to make enough room within me for Piaf to feel at home, without me disappearing completely.'

Post-Oscar career: Set to star in super-slick director Michael Mann's (Heat, Collateral) new crime drama, Public Enemies, with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

Notable body of work

Taxi 1 to 3 (1998, 2000, 2003)

Language: French

Plays: Lilly Bertineau

Role: Girlfriend of speed demon-taxi driver, Daniel Morales (Samy Naceri), in Marseille, France.

Tone: Feisty. Supporting role as the gal in the background who puts up with the boys as they zoom about in all kinds of adventures.

Significance: Powered to attention by the series, written by uber-producer Luc Besson. Perhaps due to her increased profile, Cotillard did not return for Taxi 4 last year.

Love Me If You Dare (2003)

Language: French

Plays: Sophie Kowalsky

Role: Reckless co-conspirator in a game of truth and dare between two selfish, destructive lovers which gets wilder and more dangerous as they go on.

Tone: Wicked. Central pivotal role which made full use of Cotillard's unpredictable manner and mischievous eyes to devious effect.

Significance: Breakout role. Coincidentally, La Vie En Rose is the main love song here.

Big Fish (2003)

Language: English

Plays: Josephine

Role: Pregnant wife of Will Bloom (Billy Crudup), son of Ed Bloom (Ewan McGregor), an incurably optimistic teller of incredible tall tales.

Tone: Gentle. Little-known foreign intruder in the presence of more well-known actors such as McGregor, Crudup, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange and Helena Bonham Carter.

Significance: Introduced to English-speaking audiences by director Tim Burton.

A Very Long Engagement (2004)

Language: French

Plays: Tina Lombardi

Role: Burlesque prostitute who forms part of the chain of clues as a young woman (Audrey Tautou) desperately searches for her missing soldier-fiance during World War I.

Tone: Sexy. In sporadic cameos, she steals the show as a vengeful murderess who wears garters and lace in bed.

Significance: In hindsight, the scene between her and Tautou, meeting for the first time in a prison cell, probably means something in French cinema now.

A Good Year (2006)

Language: English

Plays: Fanny Chenal

Role: Cafe owner in a little French village in Provence who steals the heart of a cutthroat London investment banker (Russell Crowe).

Tone: Romantic. Standard love-interest role in a movie banking on Crowe turning into a comedian.

Significance: Her first role opposite a bona fide Hollywood leading man.

La Vie En Rose (2007)

Language: French

Plays: Edith Piaf

Role: Heart, soul, voice, legend, despair and everything of a film about a French icon.

Tone: Mesmerising. Total immersion as she goes from young, eager songbird to dying, decrepit swan in the movie.

Significance: Wins the Oscar.

La Vie En Rose is showing at Golden Village Grand today.