Omar Sy

Omar Sy is a rarity–a highly popular French comedy actor who has been embraced by Hollywood. After four years of comedy appearances on radio and television, as well as with his long-running comic partner, Fred Testot, Sy broke into French cinema in a string of small roles from 2000 to 2006.

He landed the first of several major roles in Éric Toledano’s and Olivier Nakache’s movies, starting with Nos jours heureux/Those Happy Days (2006), and continuing later with Toledano’s and Nakache’s Tellement proches/So Close (2009); the huge hit comedy, Intouchables (2011), with François Cluzet (both actors winning best actor César Awards), and grossing a spectacular $426.6 million on a $10.8 million budget.

He also played the title role in the comedy-drama, Samba (2014), co-starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tahar Rahim, and Izia Higelin, and earning a good $39 million gross. Cy then collaborated with such major French filmmakers as Jean-Pierre Jeunet (for Micmacs (2009)), Luc Besson (for Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard (2009)), Olivier Dahan (for Les seigneurs (2012)), and Michel Gondry (for L’ecume des jours/Mood Indigo (2013), with Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou).

Sy’s first Hollywood role came with a small role in the MCU sequel, Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), directed by Joe Johnston, followed four years later with the Henrik Ruben Genz-directed thriller, Good People (2014), co-starring James Franco, Kate Hudson, and Tom Wilkinson, and a small role in director-producer Bryan Singer’s X-Men sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).

Omar Sy voiced the lead role in the award-winning animated 3-D French fantasy, Mune, la gardien de la lune (2014), with Higelin, and then shifted in a significant way to Hollywood-produced movies (while still starring in French movies), starting with a major supporting role in co-writer/director Colin Trevorrow’s $1.6-billion-grossing Jurassic World (2015), with Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, BD Wong, and Irrfan Khan. Sy co-starred with Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Daniel Brühl, Alicia Vikander, Lily James, Uma Thurman, and Emma Thompson in director-producer John Wells’ drama, Burnt (2015).

Sy was nominated for the best actor César Award for his lead performance in the historic biopic, Chocolat (2016), co-written and directed by Roschdy Zem, and then voiced French-dubbed voices for The Angry Birds Movie (2016), Norm of the North (2016), and Sahara (2017), and also did English-language voicing for Michael Bay’s Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) and the animated family movie, Arctic Dogs (2019).

Omar Sy continued his run as a major French big-screen star with co-writer/director Hugo Gelin’s comedy-drama, Demain tout commence/Two Is a Family (2016), earning a good $33 million domestically. Sy’s biggest high-profile role to date arrived with the Ron Howard-directed version of Dan Brown’s thriller, Inferno (2016), starring Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Irrfan Khan, and Ben Foster, and garnering a $220 million worldwide gross for Columbia/Sony Pictures.

Sy continued his run as a French leading man (and comic) by starring in the French cop comedy, Le Flic de Belleville (2018), directed by Rachid Bouchareb and co-written by Bouchareb, Marion Doussot, and Larry Gross. Omar Sy co-starred with Harrison Ford in the 20^th Century Fox-produced (with producer James Mangold) The Call of the Wild (2020), adapted from Jack London’s classic novel by writer Michael Green and director Chris Sanders, but losing money with a weak $111 million gross.

After starring in director Michel Hazanavicius’s Le prince oublié (2020), Sy starred with Virginie Efira in Anne Fontaine’s drama, Police/Night Shift (2020), premiering at the Berlin Film Festival. Sy did the French dub of the lead character, Joe (played by Jamie Foxx in the English original), in Pixar/Disney’s animated Soul (2020), and then starred in and produced the French-Senegalese war drama, Tirailleurs/Father & Soldier (2022), directed, co-written, and co-produced by Mathieu Vadepied and selected as opening film in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard competition.

Sy reunited with director/co-writer Colin Trevorrow for the sequel, Jurassic World Dominion (2022), and with cast mates Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, Mamoudou Athie, and BD Wong, which grossed a worldwide total of just over $1 billion.

Omar Sy continued his Hollywood movie string in the pivotal role of Barabbas in filmmaker Jeymes Samuel’s second feature, The Book of Clarence (2024), with LaKeith Stanfield, RJ Cyler, Anna Diop, David Oyelowo, Alfre Woodard, Teyana Taylor, Michael Ward, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, James McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Nicholas Pinnock (as Jesus), and released by TriStar/Sony Pictures Releasing after premiering at the London film festival. Sy co-starred with star/producer Kerry Washington in Lionsgate’s thriller, Shadow Force (date to be announced), directed and co-written by Joe Carnahan, and with Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Method Man, and Mark Strong.

Sy shifted to French cinema for writer-director Joann Sfar’s drama, Le chat du rabbin (date to be announced) with Christian Clavier; as well as the Anne Le Ny-directed drama, Histoire d’Un Mariage/Out of Control (2024), co-starring Vanessa Paradis and Jose Garcia. Omar Sy starred in writer-director Brandt Andersen’s Syria-based drama, The Strangers’ Case (date to be announced), with Angeliki Papoulia and Yasmine Al Massri.