Jean Reno

The son of Cádiz natives who didn't speak French

Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez was born in Casablanca in 1948. His parents were from Cádiz and were fleeing the Franco regime, so Spanish was his first language. Before turning twenty, he moved to France to study acting and had to complete military service to obtain citizenship.

Reno doesn't have the look of the classic French movie leading man. He stands almost six foot three, with hard features that seem carved out of rock. He worked in theater and television for years without anyone paying him much attention.

Then she met Luc Besson.

That meeting changed his personal and professional path. Besson cast him in a small role in Le Dernier Combat in 1983, where the actor didn't say a single word. But his physical presence was so powerful that the director made him his go-to actor for the next decade.

In 1988 came massive success with The Big Blue. He played Enzo Molinari, and the film became a social phenomenon in France. It sold more than 9 million tickets in the French market alone, making him the most recognizable face of European cinema in the late 1980s.

The Assassin Who Conquered Hollywood

The film Léon in 1994 was the project that broke every barrier. Reno played a cleaner, an illiterate hitman who drank milk and took care of a plant. The chemistry with a very young Natalie Portman fueled a film that grossed 45 million dollars worldwide.

The American market embraced him as one of its own.

Hollywood began calling him for big-budget projects. In 1996 he appeared in Mission: Impossible alongside Tom Cruise, playing a helicopter pilot. But Reno never wanted to abandon his European roots, and he alternated these shoots with French comedies that performed very well at the box office.

Les Visiteurs was the clearest example of this dual success. In 1993 this medieval comedy drew 13 million moviegoers in France. That allowed the actor to afford filming Godzilla in 1998 and then return to his country to shoot Les Rivières pourpres in 2000.

Reno has always preferred working with friends. He has made five films with Luc Besson and has remained absolutely loyal to the directors who believed in him when he was an unknown. His work ethic was forged in the lean years in Morocco and Paris.

Maturity in the streaming era

Over the decades, the actor has chosen roles that let him showcase his more laid-back side. In 2006, he played Captain Bezu Fache in The Da Vinci Code alongside Tom Hanks. The film was a huge box office hit despite the harsh reviews it received from the specialized press.

His pace of work hasn't slowed down with age.

In 2020 he shot the series Un asunto privado in Spain for a streaming platform. He speaks Spanish perfectly, though with a slight accent that reveals his life in France. In 2024 he appeared in the action film Lift, playing a sophisticated villain who collects stolen art.

Also in 2024, he released the comedy Maison de retraite 2 in France. Reno remains a safe bet for producers, since his name on a poster guarantees automatic international distribution. But he prefers to spend his time at his home in New York or among his olive groves in Provence.

In 2006 his wedding to Zofia Borucka had Nicolas Sarkozy and Johnny Hallyday as witnesses. He currently lives much of the year in the United States and holds French citizenship by choice and Spanish citizenship by heritage. His estimated net worth exceeds 100 million euros thanks to real estate investments and advertising contracts.