Chiara Mastroianni

Born from the ultimate in acting royalty, Chiara Mastroianni went on to be an actress in her own right. The child of French and Italian acting legends Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni, Chiara has made dozens of French films since her uncredited debut appearance, at age seven, in the drama "Us Two," which starred her mother. Despite the small part--dubbed simply "la petite fille"--Mastroianni was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress. Her first role in earnest followed several years later in young adulthood, a supporting part in another Deneuve film, the 1993 André Téchiné drama, "My Favorite Season," which co-starred Daniel Auteuil. Mastroianni would continue to collaborate with her mother to a greater or lesser extent: in 1996, she had an uncredited appearance in the crime drama "Thieves," another Deneuve-Auteuil-Téchiné production. Their strongest mother-daughter collaboration came much later, in an unlikely format; in 2007, Mastroianni provided the central voice to Marjane Satrapi's Oscar-nominated transnational coming-of-age saga, "Persepolis," a black-and-white animated film that illuminates Satrapis's own story as an Iranian girl growing up amidst the Iranian revolution and eventually living abroad. Deneuve voiced Marjane's mother, Mrs. Satrapi, and the film earned numerous awards worldwide. Mastroianni's other stand-out roles include an appearance, along with her father, in Robert Altman's 1994 fashion-world send-up, "Prêt-à-Porter," and as Carlotta, the star of the 2002 epic drama "Carnage," which screened at Cannes. Mastroianni's romantic life has included relationships with Benicio del Toro and a brief marriage to singer-composer Benjamin Biolay.