Matthias Schoenaerts: The Life Story Behind Belgium's Tough Star

What does it cost to be the son of the most respected actor in your country, and to make your first film at fifteen in a movie that gets nominated for an Oscar? Matthias Schoenaerts knows the answer, because he has lived it, and the answer is more complicated than the question suggests. Being Julien Schoenaerts’s son opened doors, and it also meant that every performance would be compared with his father’s. Debuting in Daens at fifteen meant that he had been on a film set before he had finished school, and that the industry had seen him grow up. The real question is not how he got started, but how he survived the start, and how he turned a famous name and an early debut into a career that belongs to him alone. The answer is Bullhead, a film about a cattle farmer who injects himself with hormones and loses control of his life, and a performance so physical and so committed that it erased every comparison with his father in a single stroke. Schoenaerts gained weight, learned to move like a man whose body is betraying him, and gave a performance that made the film one of the most talked-about in Europe. That is how you stop being someone’s son. You do the work so well that nobody remembers the question.

Bullhead: the Farmer, the Hormones, and the Performance That Changed Everything

Bullhead, released in 2011 and directed by Michaël R. Roskam, is a film about Jacky Vanmarsenille, a cattle farmer in Limburg who is involved in the illegal trade in growth hormones for livestock, and who injects himself with the same substances. The story is dark, violent, and strange, and Jacky’s body is the centre of it: he is a large man, built up by steroids, whose face and body show the damage of what he has done to himself. Schoenaerts played Jacky, and the performance required him to gain a significant amount of weight, to learn the physicality of a man whose body is both powerful and broken, and to show a character who is, at once, frightening and sympathetic. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and it won awards at festivals across Europe, and Schoenaerts’s performance was praised as one of the most committed of the year. The role changed his career in a way that no previous part had: before Bullhead, he was a Belgian actor known in Belgium; after it, he was an actor that directors in France, Britain, and America wanted to work with. The film also showed what he was capable of, which was a kind of physical acting that few performers attempt: he did not just play a character, he became one, body and all, and the transformation was so complete that audiences who had seen him before did not recognise him.

Antwerp, Julien Schoenaerts, and Daens at Fifteen

Antwerp, a port city in the north of Belgium, gives 8 December 1977 as Matthias Schoenaerts’s birth date, and the household he grew up in was steeped in theatre. His father, Julien Schoenaerts, was one of Belgium’s most respected actors, a man whose work on stage was legendary in Flanders, and his mother, Dominique Wiche, worked as a costume designer. The theatre was part of his childhood in a literal sense: he grew up around rehearsals, costumes, and actors, and he has said that the stage felt like a natural place to be. His father died when Matthias was a young man, and he has said the loss made him take acting more seriously, because it made him understand that the work his father had done was not a game but a life. He made his film debut at fifteen in Daens, released in 1992 and directed by Stijn Coninx, a film about a priest in nineteenth-century Belgium who fights for the rights of workers. Daens was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, which meant that Schoenaerts’s first film was an Oscar-nominated one, a fact that is both an achievement and a burden: it set a standard that he would spend years trying to match. He studied acting in Antwerp, at the Royal Conservatory, and he worked in Belgian theatre and film for most of the next decade, taking the small parts that young actors take and learning the craft the slow way.

Rust and Bone: Marion Cotillard, a Killer Whale, and a César Nomination

In 2012, Schoenaerts appeared in Rust and Bone, directed by Jacques Audiard, playing Ali, a man who works as a bouncer and who falls in love with Stéphanie, played by Marion Cotillard, a woman who loses her legs in an accident at a marine park. The film is a love story, but it is not a gentle one: Ali is violent, selfish, and unreliable, and Stéphanie is angry, proud, and determined to live her life on her own terms. Schoenaerts played Ali with a physicality that matched the Bullhead performance, but with a different emotional register: Ali is a man who learns to care, slowly and painfully, and the learning is the story. The film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, and it was praised by critics, and Schoenaerts was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actor, a recognition that the French film industry took him seriously. Working with Cotillard, who had won an Oscar for La Vie en Rose, was a test, and Schoenaerts passed it: he held his own opposite one of the most acclaimed actresses in the world, and the chemistry between them was the reason the film worked. Rust and Bone made him known in France in a way that Bullhead had not, because it was a French film, in French, with a French star, and it proved he could work in French as well as he could work in Dutch.

The Drop, Far from the Madding Crowd, and Hollywood

Hollywood came for Schoenaerts after Bullhead and Rust and Bone, and the roles that followed showed how the industry saw him: as a strong, physical presence who could play men of few words. In 2014 he appeared in The Drop, directed by Michaël R. Roskam, the same director as Bullhead, playing Eric Deeds, a man who becomes involved in a robbery, opposite Tom Hardy. The film is a quiet crime drama, set in Brooklyn, and Schoenaerts’s performance is built on stillness: Eric is a man who does not say much, and the danger is in what he does not say. In 2015 he played Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd, an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel, directed by Thomas Vinterberg, opposite Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel is a shepherd who loves Bathsheba and who waits for her, patiently, through her mistakes and her marriages, and the part required Schoenaerts to play a man whose strength is in his patience rather than in his power. The same year he appeared in The Danish Girl, directed by Tom Hooper, playing Hans Axgil, a childhood friend of the painter Einar Wegener, and in A Bigger Splash, directed by Luca Guadagnino, playing Paul, a man whose holiday with his partner is disrupted by the arrival of an old friend. These were English-language films, with international casts, and they showed that Schoenaerts could work in Hollywood without losing the qualities that had made him famous in Belgium and France.

Red Sparrow, The Old Guard, and the Action Years

The late 2010s and early 2020s brought Schoenaerts into the world of large commercial films, and the parts he took there were different from the ones that had made his name. In 2018 he appeared in Red Sparrow, playing Vanya Egorova, the uncle of Jennifer Lawrence’s character, a Russian intelligence officer who is both charming and dangerous. In 2020 he played Booker in The Old Guard, a Netflix film directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, about a group of immortal warriors, opposite Charlize Theron. Booker is a man who has lived for centuries and who betrays his friends because he is tired of living, and the part gave Schoenaerts a chance to play weariness and guilt in a film that was mostly about action. He also appeared in The Mustang in 2019, playing a prison inmate who trains wild horses, a film that returned him to the kind of physical, character-driven work that Bullhead had been, and in Amsterdam in 2022, David O. Russell’s film about a murder in the 1930s, playing Detective Lem Getweiler. These films were large, commercial, and, in some cases, divisive with critics, but they made him a familiar face to audiences who had never seen Bullhead or Rust and Bone, and they proved that he could work in the Hollywood system without being swallowed by it. He has kept returning to smaller, European films as well, because the smaller films are where the best writing is, and because he has never wanted to be only an action actor.

The Artist on the Side: Painting, Photography, and Graffiti

Schoenaerts is also an artist, and the art is not a hobby but a serious part of his life. He makes graffiti, he takes photographs, and he paints, and he has exhibited his work. The graffiti is the most interesting part, because it is a form that is anonymous, illegal, and public all at once, which is the opposite of acting, where the face is the point. He has said that making art gives him a freedom that acting does not, because there is no director, no script, and no audience to please, only the wall and the paint. The photography is similar: it is a way of looking at the world without being looked at, and it is a pursuit that fits the pattern of his career, which is a pattern of wanting to be seen on his own terms. He has spoken about the art in interviews, but he has not made a fuss about it, and he has kept it separate from his acting in a way that suggests he values it for itself rather than as a way of promoting himself. The artist and the actor are the same person, and the two sides of his life inform each other: the physicality of his acting comes partly from the physicality of making art, and the patience of his acting comes partly from the patience of working on a canvas or a wall.

A Father, a Son, and What Comes Next

Schoenaerts has a son, and he has spoken about fatherhood as something that changed how he thinks about his work and his time. He has said that being a father made him more selective, because he wants to be present for his child, and because he does not want to spend months away on a film that does not matter to him. That selectivity is visible in his recent choices: fewer films, more careful choices, and a return to European cinema when the right project comes along. He speaks Dutch, French, and English, and the languages let him work in three film industries, which is a practical advantage that most actors do not have. He is in his late forties, he has a César nomination, an Oscar-nominated film as his debut and another as his breakthrough, and a career that spans Belgium, France, and Hollywood. The boy who debuted at fifteen in Daens, and who lost his father as a young man, has become an actor who is respected in three countries and who is still, in the best sense, a working actor: he takes the parts that interest him, he does the work properly, and he goes home to his son and to his art. The next decade will show whether he finds a role as defining as Bullhead, but the career he has already built is substantial, and it is his own, not his father’s, which is the achievement that matters most.

The Mustang, Amsterdam, and the Return to Character Work

The Mustang, released in 2019 and directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, is the film that best shows what Schoenaerts does when the material is strong and the budget is small. He plays Roman Coleman, a prison inmate in Nevada who is assigned to a programme that trains wild mustangs, and the film follows Roman as he learns, slowly and painfully, to control his anger and to connect with a horse that is as wild as he is. The part required Schoenaerts to be still, to listen, and to let the horse do the talking, and the performance is one of the most restrained of his career. There are long stretches of the film in which he says almost nothing, and the audience watches a man change through his body rather than through his words. Amsterdam, released in 2022 and directed by David O. Russell, was a very different kind of film: a large, star-studded period drama about a murder in the 1930s, in which Schoenaerts played Detective Lem Getweiler, a small part in a film full of famous faces. The film was not a success, and it was criticised for its script, but Schoenaerts’s performance was solid, and it showed that he could work in a Hollywood ensemble without being overwhelmed by it. The contrast between the two films is instructive: The Mustang is the kind of film that Schoenaerts is best in, a character study with room to breathe, and Amsterdam is the kind of film that pays well but does not give the actor much to do. He has kept choosing both kinds, because a career needs both, but the films that will be remembered are the small ones, where the acting is the point.

Belgium, Language, and Working in Three Countries

Schoenaerts’s career is unusual in that it spans three film industries — Belgian, French, and American — and three languages — Dutch, French, and English — and the ability to move between them is one of the most practical advantages he has. Belgium is a small country with two language communities, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, and an actor from Antwerp grows up aware that the same country contains two different cultures. Schoenaerts speaks Dutch as his first language, French fluently, and English fluently, and the languages let him take parts that other actors cannot. Bullhead was in Dutch, Rust and Bone was in French, and The Drop was in English, and the fact that he could do all three in the space of three years is a testament to his training and to his upbringing. The multilingual career is also a form of freedom: if one industry is slow, he can work in another, and if one kind of film stops being made, he can make a different kind. He has said that he feels at home in Belgium, in France, and in America, and that he does not feel like a foreigner in any of them, which is a rare thing for an actor to say and a rarer thing for it to be true. The boy from Antwerp who debuted at fifteen has become an actor who belongs in three countries, and that belonging is the result of work, not of luck.

Racer and the Jailbird, The Regime, and the Return of Booker

In 2017, Schoenaerts reunited with Michaël R. Roskam, the director of Bullhead, for Racer and the Jailbird, known in French as Le Fidèle, playing Gigi, a gangster and race-car driver who falls in love with Bibi, a racing driver played by Adèle Exarchopoulos. The film is a love story and a crime drama, and it follows Gigi and Bibi across several years, as Gigi tries to leave his criminal life behind and fails. The part required Schoenaerts to play a man who is charming, violent, and romantic all at once, and the performance is built on a physicality that recalls Bullhead: Gigi is a man who lives in his body, who drives fast, who fights, and who loves with the same intensity. The film was shown at the Venice Film Festival, and it was praised for its performances, and for the chemistry between Schoenaerts and Exarchopoulos. Working with Roskam again, six years after Bullhead, was a sign of how much the director trusted him, and of how much Schoenaerts valued the collaboration. The two films are very different — one is about a farmer, the other is about a gangster — but they share a director, an actor, and a belief that a character is best understood through what he does with his body.

In 2024 he appeared in The Regime, an HBO series starring Kate Winslet as the chancellor of a fictional European country, playing Corporal Herbert Zubak, a soldier who becomes the chancellor’s closest confidant. The series is a satire about power, and Zubak is a man who is, at once, loyal and ambitious, a soldier who finds himself at the centre of a government that is falling apart. The part was a supporting role, but it put Schoenaerts in a prestigious HBO production, opposite one of the most acclaimed actresses in the world, and it showed that he could play comedy as well as drama. He also returned as Booker in The Old Guard 2, released in 2025, reprising the role of the immortal warrior who had betrayed his friends in the first film. The sequel gave Booker a chance at redemption, and Schoenaerts played the character’s guilt and weariness with a restraint that made the action sequences feel grounded. He was also cast in Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind, a film about the life of Jesus, in which he was reported to play St. Peter, a part that, if it reaches the screen, would be one of the most prestigious of his career. These recent roles show an actor who is still working, still choosing interesting projects, and still, in his late forties, at the height of his powers.

The Magritte Awards and the Belgian Honours

The honours Schoenaerts has received in Belgium tell the story of a career that was recognised at home first. He won the Magritte Award for Best Actor for Bullhead, the prize given by the Belgian film industry, which is the highest honour in Belgian cinema. The award mattered because it was not for a supporting role or for a film carried by a famous co-star; it was for a performance in which he was the centre of every scene, and it proved that the breakthrough was real. He was also nominated for the European Film Award for Best Actor for Bullhead, a nomination that put him alongside the most acclaimed performers in Europe. A national prize and a European nomination, for the same performance, is a rare combination, and it shows how widely the film was admired, in Belgium and beyond.

My Take:

The first thing I want to say about Matthias Schoenaerts is that Bullhead is one of the most committed performances I have ever seen, and it is the performance that everything else in his career should be measured against. He gained weight, he changed the way he moved, he changed the way he spoke, and he became a man whose body was betraying him. That kind of transformation is easy to admire and hard to do, because it requires the actor to give up the thing that most actors protect most carefully: their appearance. Schoenaerts gave it up, and the film is better for it, and his career is better for it, because the performance proved that he was willing to do whatever the part required. That willingness is rare, and it is the reason directors trust him with difficult roles. They know he will not ask for the easy version; he will ask for the true one, even if the true one is ugly.

Rust and Bone is the film I would show someone who wants to understand what Schoenaerts can do when the part is not only physical but emotional. Ali is a man who is violent, selfish, and unreliable, and the film asks the audience to watch him learn to care, slowly and painfully. Schoenaerts plays that learning without making it sentimental, and the scenes with Marion Cotillard are the reason the film works. Cotillard is one of the most acclaimed actresses in the world, and Schoenaerts held his own opposite her, which is not a small thing. The César nomination he received for the role was deserved, and it marked the moment when the French film industry accepted him as one of its own, not as a Belgian actor working in France but as a French actor, full stop. That acceptance matters, because it opened the door to the French films that have been some of the best of his career.

The fact that he is Julien Schoenaerts’s son is something I want to handle carefully, because it is easy to say that his career was helped by his father’s name, and it is also easy to say that it was hindered by it, and both things are true in different ways. A famous father opens doors, and it also means that every performance is compared with the father’s, and the comparison is never fair, because the father is dead and cannot defend himself, and the son is alive and has to live with the judgement. Schoenaerts has handled that pressure with a dignity that is worth noting: he has spoken about his father with respect, he has said the loss made him take acting more seriously, and he has never tried to trade on the name or to run away from it. He simply did the work, and the work — Bullhead, Rust and Bone, The Mustang — is what people remember now, not the name. That is the best answer to the question of what it costs to be someone’s son: it costs you the right to be judged on your own, and you earn that right back by being good.

The art is the part of his life I find most interesting, and I think it tells you something about him that the acting does not. He makes graffiti, he takes photographs, he paints, and he does it without making a fuss about it. Graffiti is anonymous, which is the opposite of acting, where the face is the point, and I think that is why he likes it: it is a way of making something without being seen, of putting a mark on the world without putting his name on it. The photography is similar: it is a way of looking without being looked at. These are the pursuits of a person who values privacy, and who understands that fame is a tool rather than a prize. Schoenaerts has never been a celebrity in the conventional sense; he is an actor who is famous for his work, not for his life, and the art is part of why. It gives him a place to go that has nothing to do with the film industry, and that place keeps him sane.

If I have a criticism, it is that his Hollywood career has never quite given him a role as good as Bullhead or Rust and Bone, and that is a shame, because he is capable of more than the action films have asked of him. The Old Guard was a good film, and Booker was a good part, but it was a supporting role in a franchise, and it did not ask him to do what Bullhead asked him to do. Red Sparrow was a similar story: a good part in a film that was not as good as it should have been. The Mustang is the exception, and it is the film that proves my point: when the material is strong and the budget is small, Schoenaerts is at his best, because the film depends on him rather than on special effects. I would like to see him in more films like The Mustang, and fewer films like Amsterdam, which was a large, star-studded production that did not give him much to do. He is in his late forties, he is at the height of his powers, and he has the experience to carry a film. The industry should give him one.

The languages are a practical advantage that I think deserves more attention than it usually gets. Speaking Dutch, French, and English means Schoenaerts can work in three film industries, and it means he can take parts that other actors cannot even audition for. Bullhead was in Dutch, Rust and Bone was in French, The Drop was in English, and the fact that he did all three in the space of three years is remarkable. Most actors are dependent on a single market, and when that market slows down, they have nowhere to go. Schoenaerts has three markets, and that freedom shows in his choices, because he does not have to take a bad job to stay employed. It also shows in his performances, because acting in a second or third language requires a different kind of attention, and the attention makes the performance more precise. I think more actors should think about that, because the industry is global now, and the actors who can work in more than one language have an advantage that no amount of talent can replace.

Looking at the whole picture, I think Matthias Schoenaerts’s career is a story about earning your own name. He started as Julien’s son, he debuted at fifteen in an Oscar-nominated film, and he could easily have spent his life being compared with his father. Instead, he did the work, he gained the weight, he learned the languages, he made the art, and he built a career that belongs to him alone. Bullhead is the proof, Rust and Bone is the confirmation, and The Mustang is the reminder that he is still doing it, still choosing the hard parts, still refusing the easy ones. The boy from Antwerp who grew up in the theatre has become an actor who is respected in three countries, and the respect is earned, not inherited. That is a story worth telling, and it is a story that has nothing to do with luck.

For anyone discovering him now, start with Bullhead, because it is the performance that defines him, and then watch Rust and Bone, because it shows the emotional range that Bullhead only hinted at. Then watch The Mustang, because it is the most recent proof that he is still at his best when the material is strong. Those three films, taken together, give you the full arc: the farmer, the lover, and the prisoner, three men who have nothing in common except the actor who played them, and the actor who played them is one of the best of his generation.

Racer and the Jailbird is the film I would point to if someone asked me whether Schoenaerts and Roskam are one of the great actor-director partnerships in European cinema, because the two films they have made together — Bullhead and Racer and the Jailbird — are both built on the same belief: that a character is best understood through what he does with his body. Gigi is a gangster and a race-car driver who falls in love with a woman who races, and the film follows the two of them across several years, as Gigi tries to leave his criminal life behind and fails. Schoenaerts played Gigi with a physicality that recalls Bullhead, but with a different emotional register: Gigi is charming where Jacky was frightening, and romantic where Jacky was broken. The chemistry with Adèle Exarchopoulos is the reason the film works, and the fact that Roskam trusted Schoenaerts with a second leading role, six years after the first, is a sign of how much the director valued the collaboration. Not many actors get a second film with the director who made them famous. Schoenaerts did, and the film is better for it.

The Regime is the role that shows Schoenaerts can play comedy, and that is worth saying, because his reputation is built on serious, physical dramas. Corporal Herbert Zubak is a soldier who becomes the closest confidant of a chancellor played by Kate Winslet, in a satire about power, and the part required him to be, at once, loyal and ambitious, funny and frightening. The series is a satire, which means the acting has to be precise: if the actor plays it too broadly, the satire becomes farce, and if he plays it too seriously, the satire disappears. Schoenaerts found the balance, and his performance was one of the most praised in the series. Working opposite Winslet, who is one of the most acclaimed actresses in the world, was a test, and he passed it, which is the same thing he did opposite Cotillard in Rust and Bone and opposite Theron in The Old Guard. There is a pattern here: Schoenaerts is at his best opposite a great actress, because the great actress raises his game, and he raises hers. That is the mark of a serious actor, and it is the reason directors keep casting him in ensembles with the best performers alive.

The Old Guard 2 is the last film I want to mention, because it shows that Schoenaerts is still working in franchises, and still, in his late forties, at the height of his powers. Booker is a man who has lived for centuries, who betrayed his friends in the first film, and who is given a chance at redemption in the second, and Schoenaerts played the guilt and the weariness with a restraint that made the action sequences feel grounded. The film is a commercial one, and it is not the kind of film that wins awards, but it is the kind of film that keeps an actor employed, and that keeps him visible to audiences who have never seen Bullhead. That visibility matters, because it means the next director who wants to cast him in a serious drama will know his name. The boy from Antwerp who debuted at fifteen has become an actor who works in three countries, in three languages, and in every genre, and the reason is not luck but work: he did the work, he gained the weight, he learned the languages, and he kept going.

The Magritte Award for Best Actor, and the European Film Award nomination for Bullhead, are worth one final word, because they show how widely the film was admired, in Belgium and beyond. A national prize and a European nomination, for the same performance, is a rare combination, and it is the measure of what Schoenaerts did in that film: he gained the weight, he changed the way he moved, and he became a man whose body was betraying him. That kind of transformation is easy to admire and hard to do, and the awards are the industry’s way of saying that it noticed. Schoenaerts has never campaigned for awards, and he has never made a fuss about them, which is consistent with everything else about him: the work first, the recognition second, and the art kept close throughout. That is a rare attitude, and it is the reason directors trust him with difficult roles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What film made Matthias Schoenaerts famous?

Bullhead, released in 2011 and directed by Michaël R. Roskam, made him famous. He played Jacky Vanmarsenille, a cattle farmer involved in the illegal hormone trade, and the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

How old was Matthias Schoenaerts when he made his film debut?

He was fifteen when he appeared in Daens, released in 1992 and directed by Stijn Coninx, a film about a priest who fights for workers’ rights in nineteenth-century Belgium. Daens was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Who was Matthias Schoenaerts’s father?

His father was Julien Schoenaerts, one of Belgium’s most respected actors, known for his work on stage in Flanders. His mother, Dominique Wiche, worked as a costume designer, and Matthias has said his father’s death made him take acting more seriously.

Was Matthias Schoenaerts nominated for a César Award?

Yes, he was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actor for Rust and Bone in 2012, in which he played Ali opposite Marion Cotillard. The film was directed by Jacques Audiard and shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

What role did Matthias Schoenaerts play in The Old Guard?

He played Booker in The Old Guard, a 2020 Netflix film directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, about a group of immortal warriors. Booker is a man who has lived for centuries and betrays his friends because he is tired of living.

Does Matthias Schoenaerts make art as well as act?

Yes, he makes graffiti, takes photographs, and paints, and he has exhibited his work. He has said that making art gives him a freedom that acting does not, because there is no director, no script, and no audience to please.