Jean Reno

Jean Rene (originally named Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez), a French actor, was born on 30th July 1948 in Casablanca, Morocco. He was born to Spanish parents who belonged to Andalucía but had to move to North Africa to seek out work. Jean’s father, Rene, worked as a linotypist. When Jean was 17 years of age, he settled in France along with his parents. He also served in the French Army, not by choice but because he had to since it was mandatory after his family received French citizenship. 

He then started studying acting at the Cours Simon School of Drama. Once he started getting acting jobs, he adopted a French version of his first name, Jean, and shortened his surname to Reno. He first appeared in the Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz’s directed mystery film The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1978). Since then, Jean has worked in several international productions including American, English, Spanish, and Italian. 

Jean’s film career got a boost after appearing in several of Luc Besson’s directed movies and the first one was Le Dernier Combat (1983). The two developed long-term collaborations and Jean has been involved in numerous films that are directed, written, or produced by Besson. Some of their most famous collaborated movies include La Femme Nikita (1990) and Léon: The Professional (1994). Besides, Jean also made appearances his several other high-profile American movies including French Kiss (1995), Mission Impossible (1996), Ronin (1998), and Godzilla (1998). Jean refused to play the role of Agent Smith in the film The Matrix (1999) because he was busy filming for Godzilla. One of his most prominent roles came in The Pink Panther (2006), in which he played the role of Gilbert Ponton, and again in its sequel The Pink Panther 2 (2009). His last movie appearance came in a French-Italian romantic/drama Promise (2021), which was written and directed by Amanda Sthers.  

In 1977, Jean married Geneviève with whom he had two children, a daughter (Sandra) and a son (Mickael). The couple got divorced in 1988 and in 1955, Reno married Nathalie Dyszkiewicz, a Polish model, with whom he also had two children, a son (Tom) and a daughter (Serena). In 2001, they too divorced. In 2006, Jean married for the third time to Zofia Borucka, a British model and actress to whom he is still married. Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, was the best man whom Jean also endorsed for the 2007 French Presidential election.