Icon of French cinema, a world star in the same way as Alain Delon or Brigitte Bardot, he has completed over 250 films since 1967, almost exclusively as a lead.

[5][6] Depardieu has worked with over 150 film directors whose most notable collaborations include Jean-Luc Godard,[7] François Truffaut,[8] Maurice Pialat,[9] Alain Resnais,[10] Claude Chabrol,[11] Ridley Scott,[12][13] and Bernardo Bertolucci.

[14][15][16] As of January 2022, his body of work also includes countless television productions, 18 stage plays, 16 records and 9 books.

[17][18][19] He is known for having portrayed numerous leading historical and fictitious figures of the Western world including Georges Danton, Joseph Stalin, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Auguste Rodin, Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean Valjean, Edmond Dantès, Christopher Columbus, Obélix, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

He was granted citizenship of Russia in January 2013 (officially adopted name in Russian: Жерар Ксавие Депардьё, romanized: Zherar Ksavie Depardyo), and became a cultural ambassador of Montenegro during the same month.

He co-starred in Peter Weir's comedy Green Card (1990), winning a Golden Globe Award, and later acted in many big-budget Hollywood films, including Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996), Randall Wallace's The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), and Ang Lee's Life of Pi (2012).

He is one of the five children of Anne Jeanne Josèphe (née Marillier), a stay-at-home mother known as "La Lilette", and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu (better known in his neighborhood as "Dédé" because he could write only two letters),[21]: 12  a metal worker and volunteer fireman.

Depardieu grew up in poverty in a two-room apartment at 39 rue du Maréchal-Joffre, Châteauroux, in a working-class family, with five brothers and sisters.

During a difficult adolescence, he turned to theft and smuggling all kinds of goods, notably cigarettes and alcohol), to the GIs at the large American air base of Châteauroux-Déols.

[21]: 23  In 1968, Depardieu's childhood best friend Jacky Merveille, also a kingpin from Châteauroux, died in a car accident, prompting him to take decisive control over his future.

There, he began acting in the new comedy theatre Café de la Gare, along with Patrick Dewaere, Romain Bouteille, Sotha, Coluche, and Miou-Miou.

His first film role to gain attention was playing Jean-Claude in Bertrand Blier's comedy Les Valseuses (Going Places, 1974).

Depardieu's international profile rose as a result of his performance as a doomed, hunchbacked farmer in the film Jean de Florette (1986) and received notice for his starring role in Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), for which he won his second César Award for Best Actor, the Cannes Film Festival for Best Actor, and received a nomination for an Academy Award.

Depardieu co-starred in Peter Weir's English language romantic comedy Green Card (1991), for which he won a Golden Globe Award.

He has since had other roles in other English language films, including Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996), 102 Dalmatians (2000, Between Strangers (2002), and Ang Lee's Life of Pi (2012).

On 28 January 1992, while separated from Guignot, he had a daughter, Roxanne, with the model Karine Silla (sister of producer Virginie Besson-Silla).

Guillaume's health had been adversely affected by drug addiction and a 1995 motorcycle crash that eventually required the amputation of his right leg in 2003.

[42] On 18 May 1998, Depardieu had a motorcycle accident with a high blood alcohol content, of 2.5 g/L[43] on the way to the shooting of Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar, by Claude Zidi.

[50] In September 2014, Depardieu stated he drank twelve, thirteen or fourteen bottles of alcohol daily, starting at 10:00 a.m., drinking champagne, wine, and pastis, and ending the day with vodka, whisky, or both.

[51] Laurent Audiot, the chef of the Parisian restaurant La Fontaine Gaillon, compared Depardieu to Gargantua, saying that "he has excessive energy and he compensates with food, but sometimes it takes on incredible proportions".

The unnamed actress made her statement to police in Lambesc, southern France, after which the case was passed to prosecutors in the capital.

[60] In February 2021, it was announced that French authorities had charged Depardieu with rape in December 2020, stemming from the incident in August 2018.

[61] In March 2022, the Paris Court of Appeal rejected Depardieu's attempt to have the charges dropped and announced the actor will remain under formal investigation.

[64][65][66][67] On 19 December 2023, Ruth Baza [es; fr], a Spanish author, photographer and journalist, told La Vanguardia that Depardieu had kissed and groped her without her consent in 1995 when she was 23, after she had interviewed him in Paris for Cinemania magazine, and that she has filed a complaint.

[72] She experienced flashbacks as she regained the memories of this traumatic event that her memory had buried, which were corroborated when she discovered and reread the description of the 1995 events in her diary from that year.The Coalition For Women In Journalism and Women Press Freedom stand in solidarity with Baza and highlighted in a estatement her courage in speaking out about a rape that allegedly occurred nearly 30 years ago is not only commendable but also essential in the ongoing fight against sexual violence and the culture of silence in the media and entertainment industries.

[73] One of his accusers, Emmanuelle Debever, who had made allegations against Depardieu, committed suicide and died on 6 December 2023 after one week at the hospital.