Laurent Natrella ・ Comédie-Française

Laurent Natrella began his acting education at the Antibes Conservatory; he was taught by Julien Bertheau, who cast him for Pyrrhus in Andromache and the title role in Britannicus, both were Racine’s plays. Together they formed an acting company and established the first Antibes Festival. He then enrolled at the Conservatoire national supérieur d’art dramatique de Paris and followed classes by Madeleine Marion, Pierre Vial, Daniel Mesguich, Mario Gonzales and Francis Girod. Upon graduation, Daniel Mesguich offered him to be part of the permanent company of the Métaphore Theatre.

In 1998, he made his Comédie-Française debut as Clitandre in Molière’s Les Femmes savantes under the direction of Simon Eine. He reunited with Daniel Mesguich for Racine’s Mithridate and Andromache and also worked with directors such as Jean-Pierre Miquel, Andrei Serban, Lukas Hemleb and Anne Kessler. In 2006, he played Pedro Ibañez in Lope de Vega’s Pedro et le commandeur directed by Omar Porras. He became the 514th sociétaire of the Company in 2007. The following year, he performed in García Lorca’s Yerma as staged by Vicente Pradal and, in 2010, he played in Paroles, pas de rôle / vaudeville by Damiaan De Schrijver, Peter Van den Eede and Matthias de Koning of the tg STAN, de KOE and Discordia collectives. Many directors chose to cast him in Shakespeare’s plays: Dan Jemmett in Hamlet, Jean-Yves Rufin Troïlus and Cressida and Léonie Simaga in Othello, the latter having already directed him in Pour un oui ou pour un non by Nathalie Sarraute. He played in Saadallah Wannous’s Rituel pour une métamorphose directed by Sulayman Al-Bassam; Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera by Laurent Pelly; Gogol's Marriage by Lilo Baur; and Goldoni’s The Boors (Les Rustres) by Jean-Louis Benoit. Laurent Natrella performed Jacques Leeds in Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God (Les Enfants du silence) under the direction of Anne-Marie Etienne, for which he learned French sign language and which earned him a 2017 Molière Award nomination in the category of Performance by Actor in the Public Theatre. Furthermore, he played the title role in Racine’s Bajazet directed by Éric Ruf prior to interpreting Conseil and pulling puppet strings on a tour of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (20 000 lieues sous les mers), adapted and directed by Christian Hecq and Valérie Lesort.

Outside of the Comédie-Française, Laurent Natrella directed Après une si longue nuit by Michèle Laurence, first played at the Theatre of Nouméa Island and later performed in Avignon and on tour. He also directed Jean-Christophe Dollé's Handball, le hasard merveilleux.

In movies and television, Laurent Natrella filmed under the direction of Georges Lautner, Robert Mazoyer, Pascale Bailly, Jean-Marie Poiret, Christian Gion, Ariel Zeitoun, Didier Fontan, Laurent Heineman, Pierre Boutron, Edouard Nierman, Philippe Venault, etc.
Teaching theatre has also taken pride of place in his career. He was first professor at the Cours Florent drama school, and later at the Conservatoire national supérieur d’art dramatique where he directed the 2014/2015’s graduation performance. He currently teaches at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences-Po) where he explores great classical and contemporary works on the repertoire and encourages collective writing in his various workshops.

During the 2018/2019 season, Laurent Natrella will be playing in Hors la loi written and directed by Pauline Bureau and in the rerun of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea adapted and directed by Christian Hecq and Valérie Lesort.