French-Danish actor and director Niels Arestrup, best known to international audiences for playing a Corsican crime boss in Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Grand Prix, Oscar-nominated A Prophet, has died at the age of 75, reports Screen Daily.
His wife, actress and writer Isabelle Le Nouvel, announced the news, saying Arestrup had died on Sunday (December 1) following “a courageous battle against illness” at their home outside of Paris.
Arestrup won best supporting actor César awards for his 2009 A Prophet performance and for playing the petty gangster father in Audiard’s 2005 BAFTA-winning The Beat That My Heart Skipped. He earned a third César award for Bertrand Tavernier’s 2013 political satire The French Minister (Quai d’Orsay).
His career spanned more than five decades and included roles in high-profile international films like Steven Spielberg’s 2011 First World War equine epic War Horse, Angelina Jolie’s 2015 romance By The Sea, and Julian Schnabel’s 2018 Vincent van Gogh biographical drama At Eternity’s Gate.