Jean Reno: The Life Story Behind France's Tough Guy

Jean Reno was forty-six when Léon made him famous around the world, and the age matters because he had already spent twenty years learning his craft in French theatre and film. He was born on 30 July 1948 in Casablanca, in Morocco, as Juan Moreno y Herrera Jiménez, the son of Spanish parents from Andalusia who had emigrated to North Africa, and he grew up speaking Spanish at home and French at school, in a city that was French, Moroccan and Spanish all at once. He moved to France at seventeen, he studied acting in Paris, he worked in theatre, and he met Luc Besson, a young director who would give him the roles that made him famous: Enzo in The Big Blue, Victor in La Femme Nikita, and Léon, the hitman with a heart, in Léon: The Professional. The face, with its heavy brows, its deep voice, its stillness, became one of the most recognisable in world cinema, and the career that followed took him to Hollywood, to Ronin, to Mission: Impossible, to Godzilla, and back to France, to the comedies and the thrillers that made him a star at home.

Casablanca, 1948: A Childhood in Morocco

Jean Reno was born in Casablanca in 1948, when Morocco was still a French protectorate, and the city was a place of French, Spanish, Moroccan and Jewish life, a port city on the Atlantic, a city of markets, of cinemas, of languages. His parents were Spanish, from Andalusia, and they had come to Morocco for work, and the boy grew up speaking Spanish at home, French at school, and hearing Arabic in the streets, and the three languages, the three cultures, were the air he breathed. He has described his childhood as happy, with a family that was close, with a mother who died when he was young, and with a father who worked hard, and the loss of his mother, when he was a teenager, is a fact he has spoken about with a sadness that is still visible. The childhood in Casablanca matters, because it gave Reno a sense of being an outsider, a Spaniard in Morocco, a Moroccan in France, a Frenchman with a Spanish name, and the outsider’s eye is visible in his performances, which often play men who belong nowhere and who find a home in a job, in a friendship, in a child.

The city also gave him a face, a voice, a presence. Reno is a large man, with a heavy face, with deep-set eyes, and the face is the kind that the camera loves, because it tells a story without speaking, and the story is one of a man who has lived, who has suffered, who has survived. The voice is deep, it is gravelly, it is French with a Spanish warmth, and it is immediately recognisable, and the voice is the instrument that makes Léon work, because Léon speaks little, and when he speaks, the voice carries the weight of a man who does not talk much but who means what he says. The Casablanca childhood is the source of the face and the voice, and the source is deep.

The Move to France and the Cours Simon

Reno moved to France at the age of seventeen, in 1965, after the death of his mother, and the move was a new beginning, a young man leaving Morocco for Paris, with little money, with a Spanish name, and with a desire to act. He studied at the Cours Simon in Paris, one of the respected acting schools, where he learned voice, movement, classical text, and the discipline of the stage, and the training was serious, it was physical, and it gave him the tools he would use for the rest of his life. The school also gave him a French acting identity: he became Jean Reno, a French actor, and the Spanish name, Juan Moreno, became a memory, a part of his past that he carries with him, and that he has spoken about with pride.

After drama school he worked in theatre, as most French actors do, in plays by Molière, by Shakespeare, by contemporary writers, and the theatre years were a time of learning, of playing small roles, of touring, and of building a working life. The theatre taught him the two things that Léon needs most: stillness and timing. Stillness, because a hitman who moves too much is not believable, and timing, because a joke that lands a second late is not a joke, and Reno’s performances, in comedy and in drama, are built on stillness and timing, on the pause before the line, on the look before the action, and the theatre is where he learned them, in front of a live audience, where a false note is heard at once.

Luc Besson and The Big Blue

The meeting that changed Reno’s career came with Luc Besson, a young French director who was making films that were visual, that were stylish, that were different from the French cinema of the time, and who saw in Reno a face, a presence, a man who could carry a film. Besson cast him in Le Grand Bleu, released in English as The Big Blue, in 1988, in which Reno played Enzo Molinari, an Italian free diver who competes with Jacques Mayol, played by Jean-Marc Barr, in a rivalry that is about the sea, about friendship, and about death. The film was a huge success in France, it became a cult film, and Reno’s performance, as a passionate, funny, larger-than-life Italian, showed that he could be warm, that he could be funny, and that he was not just a tough man, but a man with a heart. The role proved that he could carry a film, that he could be a leading man, and that Besson’s trust in him was justified.

The Big Blue matters for another reason, which is that it gave Reno a reputation as a Besson actor, a man who could work in Besson’s visual world, a world of blue sea, of silence, of beauty, and the reputation opened doors. He worked with Besson again, and again, and the collaboration became one of the most important in French cinema, a director and an actor who understood each other, who trusted each other, and who made films together that neither could have made alone. The sea in The Big Blue is the image of the film, and Reno’s Enzo is the human image, a man who loves the sea, who loves his friend, and who dies for it, and the love and the death are the performance.

La Femme Nikita and Victor the Cleaner

In 1990 Reno appeared in La Femme Nikita, directed by Luc Besson, in which he played Victor, known as the Cleaner, a man who is called in to clean up a murder, a professional who arrives, does his job, and leaves, without emotion, without questions, and without a name. The role is small, it is only a few scenes, but it is unforgettable, because Reno plays Victor with a calm, a professionalism, a stillness that is terrifying, and the audience remembers him long after the film ends. The Cleaner is the seed of Léon: a professional, a man who kills for a living, a man who is good at his job, and who has a code, and Reno’s performance in those few scenes is the proof that he could play such a man, and play him without making him a monster.

The role also showed Besson’s trust in Reno, because the Cleaner is a character who could easily have been a caricature, a tough man with a gun, and Reno makes him a person, a man who is tired, who is professional, who is doing a job, and the humanity is the point. The film was a success in France and abroad, and it introduced Reno to an international audience, and the international audience remembered the Cleaner, and waited to see what Reno would do next. What he did next was Léon, and Léon is the Cleaner with a heart, a man who kills for a living and who learns to love, and the learning is the film.

Léon: The Professional

Léon: The Professional, directed by Luc Besson and released in 1994, is the film that made Jean Reno famous around the world, and it is one of the most beloved films of the 1990s. Reno plays Léon, a hitman who lives alone in New York, who drinks milk, who cares for a plant, who has no family, no friends, and no life, until he meets Mathilda, a twelve-year-old girl played by Natalie Portman in her film debut, whose family has been murdered by corrupt police, and who asks Léon to teach her how to kill. The film is a story about a man who learns to love, about a girl who learns to live, and about a hitman who becomes a father, and Reno’s performance is at the centre of it: he plays Léon as a man who is simple, who is gentle, who is dangerous, and who is, for the first time in his life, happy, and the happiness is heartbreaking, because the audience knows it cannot last.

The film was a success around the world, and Reno’s performance was praised for its stillness, for its tenderness, for the way he plays a killer who is also a child, a man who has never grown up, and who learns to grow up through a twelve-year-old girl. The relationship between Léon and Mathilda is the heart of the film, and it is a relationship that could easily have been sentimental, or creepy, and Reno and Portman make it pure, make it about love, about protection, about two lonely people who find each other, and the purity is the achievement. Léon is now a classic, and Reno’s face, with its heavy brows, its deep voice, its stillness, is the face of the film, and the face is known around the world.

Les Visiteurs and the French Comedies

In 1993, before Léon, Reno starred in Les Visiteurs, released in English as The Visitors, directed by Jean-Marie Poiré, in which he played Godefroy de Montmirail, a medieval knight who, with his squire Jacquouille, played by Christian Clavier, is transported to modern France by a wizard’s spell, and who has to cope with cars, with telephones, with modern life. The film was a huge success in France, one of the biggest French comedies of all time, and Reno’s performance, as a knight who is serious, who is honourable, who is confused by the modern world, is funny because he plays it straight, because he does not try to be funny, and the straightness makes the comedy work. The film showed that Reno could do comedy, that he was not just a tough man, but a man who could make an audience laugh, and the laughter is the proof of range.

He returned to the role in sequels, and he continued to work in French comedy, in films that were popular in France, even if they did not travel abroad, and the comedies matter, because they show that Reno is a French star, not just an international one, a man whose audience in France knows him as Godefroy as well as Léon, as a knight as well as a hitman, and the two roles together are the portrait of an actor who can do everything. The comedy is built on the same stillness as the drama: Reno stands still, he looks confused, he says a line as if it were serious, and the audience laughs, because the seriousness is the joke, and the joke is the performance.

Ronin, Mission: Impossible and Hollywood

After Léon, Hollywood wanted Reno, and he went, and the Hollywood years are a chapter of big films, big directors, and supporting roles that made him known to an American audience. In 1995 he appeared in French Kiss, with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, in which he played a French police inspector, and the role was a charming one, a man who is funny and romantic, and it showed that Reno could play a lover as well as a killer. In 1996 he appeared in Mission: Impossible, directed by Brian De Palma, in which he played Franz Krieger, a member of Ethan Hunt’s team who betrays him, and the role was a villain, a man who is cold and professional, and Reno played him with the same stillness as Léon, and the audience remembered him.

In 1998 he appeared in Ronin, directed by John Frankenheimer, in which he played Vincent, a French former intelligence operative who works with Robert De Niro’s character on a heist, and the film is a thriller, it is about professionals, about men who do a job, and Reno’s Vincent is the most professional of them, a man who is calm, who is competent, and who is loyal, and the performance is one of his best in English. In the same year he appeared in Godzilla, directed by Roland Emmerich, in which he played Philippe Roaché, a French secret agent, and the film was a blockbuster, and Reno’s presence in it, as a Frenchman in an American monster film, is a reminder that Hollywood saw him as the Frenchman, the elegant, tough, slightly mysterious man, and he played that role well, even when the film did not.

The Da Vinci Code, Crimson Rivers and the Later Films

In 2000 Reno starred in Les Rivières pourpres, released in English as Crimson Rivers, directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, in which he played Pierre Niemans, a police detective investigating a murder in a remote university town in the Alps, and the film was a success in France, a thriller that is dark, that is violent, and that shows Reno as a detective, a man who is tired, who is determined, and who is good at his job. The role is a French role, a man in France, speaking French, and it proved that Reno, even after Hollywood, was still a French star, still at home in French cinema, and still capable of carrying a thriller on his own.

In 2006 he appeared in The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard, based on the novel by Dan Brown, in which he played Captain Bezu Fache, the French police captain who pursues Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks, and the role was a supporting one in a huge global hit, and Reno played Fache as a man who is serious, who is determined, and who is wrong, and the wrongness is the point: Fache believes Langdon is guilty, and he pursues him, and the pursuit drives the film. In the same year he appeared in The Pink Panther, with Steve Martin, in which he played Gilbert Ponton, the partner of Inspector Clouseau, and the role was a comedy, a man who is sane in a world of madness, and Reno played it straight, and the straightness made it funny. The later films, including L’Immortel, released in English as 22 Bullets, in 2010, in which he played a retired gangster who survives an assassination attempt, show a man in his sixties who is still working, still playing tough men, and still doing it well.

Family, Marriage and the Private Life

Reno has been married three times, and he is now married to Zofia Borucka, a Polish former model, whom he married in 2006, and with whom he has children, and he has children from his earlier marriages as well, and he has spoken about his family with a warmth that is genuine, about the importance of being a father, about the joy of his children, and about the need to protect them from the public eye. He keeps his private life private, he does not share it on social media, and he lets the work speak, and the choice is a statement: the actor is not the gossip, and the gossip is not the art, and the audience should judge him by the work. The family is the anchor, the place he returns to after the filming, after the festivals, after the fame, and the anchor holds.

He remains connected to his Spanish roots, and he has spoken about being Spanish, about his parents from Andalusia, about the Spanish language, and about the pride he feels in his origins. He is French, he is Spanish, he is Moroccan by birth, and the three identities are all true, and the combination is the man: a French actor with a Spanish name, born in Casablanca, who speaks French with a Spanish warmth, and who plays men who belong nowhere and who find a home in a job, in a friendship, in a child. The identities are not a problem; they are the source, and the source is deep.

The Face, the Voice and the Place in Cinema

Reno’s place in cinema is secure, and it is a place that no one else occupies. He is the hitman with a heart, the knight in modern France, the detective in the Alps, the Frenchman in Hollywood, and the combination is unique. He has shown that a French actor can become a global star, that a man who speaks little can say a great deal, and that stillness on screen is more powerful than shouting. The face, with its heavy brows, its deep-set eyes, its stillness, is the face of Léon, and the face is known around the world, and the voice, deep and gravelly, is the voice of a man who means what he says. The legacy is not just the films; it is the proof that an actor can be still, can be quiet, and can be unforgettable.

Jo and the Television Detective

In 2013 Reno starred in Jo, a French television series broadcast on TF1, in which he played Jo Saint-Clair, a Paris detective who investigates murders in the city, a man who is tough, who is experienced, who has a past, and who solves crimes with a combination of instinct and intelligence. The series was an international co-production, it was filmed in Paris, it was broadcast in France and abroad, and it gave Reno a leading role on television, a character he could play over many episodes, a detective in the tradition of the French polar, the crime film, and the role suited him, because he is a man who plays professionals, men who do a job, and who do it well. The series ran for one season, and it showed that Reno, in his sixties, could still carry a series, still hold an audience, and still play a leading man.

Reno has also lent his voice to animation, most notably as the French voice of Mufasa in The Lion King, a role that uses his deep, warm voice to give the lion king a dignity and a authority that the audience remembers, and the voice work is a reminder that Reno’s voice is one of his instruments, a voice that can be a hitman, a knight, a detective, and a lion king, and that the versatility is the point. The later television work, including appearances in French series and in international co-productions, shows a man who refuses to stop, who keeps working, who keeps taking roles, and who treats each new job as a chance to learn something, and the learning keeps him young, even at seventy-seven.

My Take:

The first thing to say about Jean Reno is that Léon is a hitman who drinks milk, and the milk is the whole performance. Léon lives alone, he cares for a plant, he drinks milk, he has no family, no friends, and no life, and Reno plays him as a man who is simple, who is gentle, and who is dangerous, and the combination is the character. The milk is not a gimmick; it is a sign that Léon is a child, a man who has never grown up, and who learns to grow up through a twelve-year-old girl. Reno’s performance is built on that simplicity, on the stillness, on the way he looks at Mathilda, on the way he holds the plant, and the audience believes him, because the simplicity is real, not performed, and the realness is the achievement.

The second thing is the stillness, and how it works. Reno’s best scenes are the ones in which he does almost nothing: he sits, he listens, he waits, he looks, and the audience watches him thinking, and the thinking is the performance. The stillness is hard to act, because the camera rewards movement, and Reno’s choice to stay still is a bet that the audience will come to him, and the bet pays off, because the stillness is full of meaning. In Léon the stillness is the hitman, a man who is waiting, who is watching, who is ready, and in Crimson Rivers the stillness is the detective, a man who is thinking, who is piecing together a puzzle, and in both cases the stillness is the man, and the man is the performance.

The third thing is the voice, and how deep it is. Reno’s voice is gravelly, it is French with a Spanish warmth, and it is immediately recognisable, and it is the instrument that makes Léon work, because Léon speaks little, and when he speaks, the voice carries the weight of a man who does not talk much but who means what he says. The voice is the biography: it is the voice of a man born in Casablanca, raised in Spanish and French, who moved to Paris at seventeen, and who learned to act in a language that was not his first, and the learning is audible, in the care, in the precision, in the weight of each word. The audience hears the voice and knows, at once, that this is Jean Reno, and that there is no one else who sounds like him.

The fourth thing is the meeting with Luc Besson, and how it shaped the career. Besson saw in Reno a face, a presence, a man who could carry a film, and he cast him in The Big Blue, in La Femme Nikita, in Léon, and the three films together are the foundation of Reno’s fame. The collaboration is a meeting of two artists who understood each other, a director who makes visual films and an actor who can be visual, who can stand still and let the camera do the work, and the understanding is the point. Without Besson, Reno might have spent his career in French theatre and in small film roles, and with Besson, he became a global star, and the becoming is the story of a director who trusted an actor, and an actor who repaid the trust.

The fifth thing is Les Visiteurs, and the comedy. Reno plays Godefroy, a medieval knight in modern France, and he plays him straight, he does not try to be funny, and the straightness makes the comedy work, because the audience laughs at a man who is serious in a world that is not. The comedy matters because it shows that Reno is not just a tough man, but a man who can make an audience laugh, and the laughter is the proof of range. The same actor who plays Léon, a hitman, can play Godefroy, a knight, and the two performances have nothing in common except the actor, and that is the definition of range, and the range is the result of theatre training, of discipline, and of a willingness to be funny.

The sixth thing is Ronin, and the Hollywood work. Reno plays Vincent, a French former intelligence operative, and he plays him with a calm, a competence, a loyalty, and the performance is one of his best in English, because he does not try to be American, he is French, and the Frenchness is the point. Hollywood wanted Reno as the Frenchman, the elegant, tough, slightly mysterious man, and he played that role well, in Mission: Impossible, in Godzilla, in The Da Vinci Code, and the playing is professional, it is committed, and it is honest, even when the film is not. The Hollywood years are a chapter, not the whole book, and Reno returned to France, to Crimson Rivers, to 22 Bullets, and the return is the proof that he is a French actor first, and a Hollywood actor second.

The seventh thing is the outsider, and how it shapes the performances. Reno was born in Casablanca, to Spanish parents, he moved to France at seventeen, he speaks French with a Spanish warmth, and he plays men who belong nowhere: Léon belongs nowhere, Vincent belongs nowhere, the detective in Crimson Rivers belongs nowhere, and the nowhere is the character. The outsider’s eye is the actor’s eye, a man who has lived in three countries, in three languages, and who knows what it means to be watched, to be judged, and to survive by being good at a job. The performances are built on that knowledge, and the audience feels it, even when it cannot name it, because the actor is playing something he knows.

The eighth thing is the relationship with Natalie Portman in Léon, and how it works. Portman was twelve when she played Mathilda, and the relationship between Léon and Mathilda could easily have been sentimental, or creepy, and Reno and Portman make it pure, make it about love, about protection, about two lonely people who find each other. The purity is the achievement, and it is the result of Reno’s performance: he plays Léon as a father, not as a lover, as a man who is learning to care, and the learning is the film. The audience believes the relationship because Reno believes it, and the belief is visible in every scene, in the way he looks at her, in the way he teaches her, in the way he dies for her, and the death is the proof of the love.

The ninth thing is the age, and the late fame. Reno was forty-six when Léon came out, and he had spent twenty years in theatre and in French film, and the fame came late, and the lateness is the point, because the performance is the work of a mature actor, a man who has lived, who has suffered, who has learned. The younger Reno could not have played Léon, because Léon is a man who has lived a whole life before the film begins, and Reno had lived that life, in Casablanca, in Paris, in the theatre, and the living is the performance. The late fame is not a consolation; it is the reward for twenty years of work, and the reward is deserved.

The tenth thing is the family, and the privacy. Reno has been married three times, he is now married to Zofia Borucka, he has children, and he keeps his private life private, he does not share it on social media, and he lets the work speak. The privacy is a choice, and it is a healthy choice, because an actor who shares everything will be consumed by the sharing, and Reno, who learned early that fame is not normal, has chosen to protect his family. The choice is respected by the audience, or should be, because it means that when Reno appears on screen, the audience sees the character, not the celebrity, and that is a rarer and more valuable thing than it used to be.

The eleventh thing is the Spanish identity, and how it survives. Reno was born Juan Moreno, to Spanish parents from Andalusia, and he became Jean Reno, a French actor, and the Spanish name is still part of him, in the voice, in the warmth, in the pride he feels in his origins. The identity matters, because it gives him a home, a language, a place that is his, and the home is the anchor. The French fame could have made him a Frenchman only, but he is also Spanish, and also Moroccan by birth, and the three identities together make a man who belongs to the Mediterranean, to the sea, to the south, and the belonging is the point.

The twelfth thing is the plant in Léon, and what it means. Léon cares for a plant, he waters it, he talks to it, he takes it with him when he moves, and the plant is the only living thing he loves, until he meets Mathilda. The plant is the symbol of the film, a man who cannot love a person, so he loves a plant, and Reno plays the love for the plant with a tenderness that is heartbreaking, because the audience sees a killer who is gentle with a plant, and the gentleness is the man. The plant is also the legacy: at the end of the film, Mathilda plants it in the ground, and the planting is the end of Léon’s story, and the beginning of Mathilda’s, and the audience remembers the plant long after it has forgotten the plot.

The thirteenth thing is the range, and how wide it is. Léon and Godefroy have nothing in common: one is a hitman in New York, the other is a medieval knight in modern France, and the same actor played both, and played both well. The range is not a trick; it is a discipline, the discipline of a man who trained at the Cours Simon, who learned to change his body, his voice and his mind for each role, and who never lets one role bleed into the next. The audience that watches Léon and then watches Les Visiteurs is watching two different men, and the fact that they are the same actor is the point. Reno’s range is the range of a theatre actor, and it is rare.

The fourteenth thing is the future, and what it might hold. Reno is now in his late seventies, and he is still working, still acting in film and in television, and the work shows no sign of stopping. The audience should expect more films, more of the stillness, more of the voice, more of the face that tells a story without speaking, and the expectation is a happy one, because Reno has earned it. The boy from Casablanca who moved to Paris at seventeen became one of the most recognisable actors in world cinema, and the becoming is not over, and the audience should be glad, because the best work may still be ahead, even at seventy-seven.

The fifteenth thing is the influence, and how it is already visible. Young French actors cite Reno as an influence, young directors see that a man who speaks little can say a great deal, and the seeing is the influence. The influence is not a matter of copying; it is a matter of permission, of Reno giving other actors permission to be still, to be quiet, to trust the camera, and to let the audience come to them. The permission is the gift, and it is a gift that will last longer than any single film, because it changes what other actors believe is possible.

The sixteenth thing is the legacy, and what it will be. Reno’s legacy is Léon, it is the hitman with a plant, it is the knight in modern France, it is the detective in the Alps, and it is the proof that a French actor can become a global star without ceasing to be French. The legacy is not just the films; it is the face, the voice, the stillness, and the proof that an actor can be unforgettable by doing very little, if the little is honest. The audience that watches Léon now, thirty years after it was made, still believes in Léon, still cries when he dies, and the believing is the legacy, and it will last.

The seventeenth thing, and the last, is the lesson. Reno’s career says that a boy from Casablanca can become a global star, that a man who speaks little can say a great deal, and that the work, done patiently over decades, is the way. He moved to Paris at seventeen, he studied, he worked in theatre, he met Besson, he played Enzo, Victor, Léon, and he never stopped, and the never stopping is the point. The lesson is not that talent will always be recognised, but that the work, done with stillness and with honesty, is its own reward, and that the reward, when it comes, is deserved. Reno’s reward has come, in the form of a global audience, of a face known around the world, and the audience that watches him now knows that it is watching a great actor, and that the greatness was earned, in Casablanca, in Paris, and in every silent, still performance where he let the camera do the work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who did Jean Reno play in Léon: The Professional?

He played Léon, a hitman living alone in New York who cares for a plant and drinks milk, until he meets Mathilda, a twelve-year-old girl played by Natalie Portman, whose family has been murdered, and he teaches her how to survive.

Where was Jean Reno born?

He was born on 30 July 1948 in Casablanca, Morocco, as Juan Moreno y Herrera Jiménez, to Spanish parents from Andalusia, and he moved to France at the age of seventeen to study acting in Paris.

What is Jean Reno’s role in The Big Blue?

He played Enzo Molinari, an Italian free diver who competes with Jacques Mayol, in Luc Besson’s film Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue) from 1988, a huge success in France that made Reno a leading man.

Who did Jean Reno play in Les Visiteurs?

He played Godefroy de Montmirail, a medieval knight transported to modern France, in the 1993 French comedy Les Visiteurs (The Visitors), one of the biggest French comedies of all time, alongside Christian Clavier.

What roles did Jean Reno play in Hollywood?

He played Franz Krieger in Mission: Impossible in 1996, Vincent in Ronin in 1998, Philippe Roaché in Godzilla in 1998, and Captain Bezu Fache in The Da Vinci Code in 2006, among other supporting roles in American films.

Who is Jean Reno married to?

He is married to Zofia Borucka, a Polish former model, whom he married in 2006, and he has children from his marriages. He keeps his family life private and rarely discusses it in interviews.