[2] Podalydès has been nominated for four César Awards: Best Supporting Actor for Summer Things, The Conquest, and Sorry Angel, and Best Original Screenplay for Granny's Funeral.

He is a former student of the Paris Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique, and became a pensionnaire of the Comédie-Française in 1997, and then a sociétaire in 2000, now considered as one of their major actors.

In 2011, with Emmanuel Bourdieu and Éric Ruf, staged Le Cas Jekyll by Christine Montalbetti[6] In 2012, he directed the opera Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

[7] In February 2013, he directed L'Homme qui se hait, by Emmanuel Bourdieu at the Théâtre national de Chaillot.

[8][9] In the world of opera, Podalydès directed the 2017 production of Rossini's Le Comte Ory at the Opéra Comique, Paris, [10] and Falstaff at the Opéra de Lille conducted by Antonello Allemandi in May 2023.