Women’s Month: Marion Cotillard

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Women’s month is ending, and there are still so many women who inspire me that I want to showcase.

Today, I am choosing a woman who has been such an icon for me. She fascinates me because she is so raw. She has that “stunning” factor. And she uses that power to promote very important causes. I am talking about, the one and only, Marion Cotillard.

Cotillard is a songwriter, actress and super environmentalist. She is a spokesperson for Greenpeace.

She has probably won every film award in the U.S. and Europe. And if she hasn’t won all of them yet, she will. Ha. Something I love about her art is the emotion she brings into what she does. Watching her is bewitching, and the memory lasting. When she appears on a screen, things get real.

I remember an interview she did, years after her movie La Vie en Rose, and she spoke about how she came to deeply identify with Édith Piaf. The woman’s legacy almost haunted her soul, and when I read that, I remember thinking, Wow, she gives 200 percent in all that she does. It just shows. She has a rawness that is rare. It reminds me of how important it is to allow myself to feel whatever I am feeling. And to feel it intensely.

Cotillard has done several significant environmental film projects. Her work with Greenpeace has been extensive. She once traveled to Congo to visit tropical rainforests and support an awareness project. And in 2013, she famously locked herself in a cage in the Louvre to protest the imprisonment of 30 Greenpeace activists in Russia. She held her banner stating, “I am a climate defender.”

She contributed to a drawings book to support the environment, and she designed her own doll with UNICEF France, whose proceeds went to vaccinate children in Darfur.

She works with the Maud Fontenoy   Foundation, which teaches children to preserve the oceans. She is also involved in several campaigns aiming to preserve and spread awareness about the Amazon and its indigenous people. And she has contributed to the cause of children with autism.

Marion keeps busy with her efforts and projects involving the preservation of our unique and beautiful earth. She champions education, children’s health and the arts. She is all about life; whether it be plants, animals or humanity, itself.

If you have seen her Lady Dior commercials, you know she has a wickedly good sense of humor. She is always on the best dressed lists, and her short hair is always impeccable. She has conquered continents with her voice and the raw emotion she transmits through her gorgeous blue eyes.

She not only speaks, but she acts. And today, we celebrate her efforts and vulnerability. She continuously reminds us to respect and love beauty, nature, people– to love and celebrate life.