Damien Bonnard

In Les Misérables (2019), Damien Bonnard’s Stéphane watches as though he is still deciding what to make of the people around him. Alexis Manenti’s Chris is comfortable exercising authority; Bonnard gives the police unit’s new recruit a useful hesitation. Djebril Zonga makes Gwada harder to read, so the three officers resist the simple types they might have become. We were uneasy watching them together, because Chris’s confidence makes Stéphane’s continuing assessment feel necessary.

Ladj Ly gets persuasive work from Bonnard, but keeping so close to the officers also limits the film. Some residents remain figures encountered during a working day when we want to know more about their own lives. Bonnard cannot fix that from inside Stéphane’s part. The street scenes are stronger than the heavier dramatic turns, and his restraint is welcome in a thriller so insistent on raising the stakes.

His breakthrough came as Léo in Alain Guiraudie’s Staying Vertical (2016), after small roles and extra work. An early international part as a French soldier in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (2017) was followed by Louis in The Trouble with You (2018). We rate Dunkirk highly for its exposed landscapes, exact cutting and sustained fear, with reservations about its underwritten characters. It is not the place to take the full measure of Bonnard; Les Misérables gives us more to judge.

The demanding lead role of a painter in The Restless (2021) also draws on his physical commitment. His preparation can include learning practical skills such as painting or boxing, useful work for an actor often cast as workers, fathers and men in uniform. Appearances in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch (2021) and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things (2023) sit alongside his continuing work in French cinema. Start with Les Misérables, where he has enough to do for that quiet concentration to matter.