Véronique Vella ・ Comédie-Française

Having trained at the Classe Libre of the Cours Florent, Véronique Vella became a pensionnaire of the Comédie-Française on the 15th of March 1988.

She was appointed the 479th sociétaire on the 1st of January 1989. She was noticed early on for playing in Molière’s comedies. She interpreted Julie in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac by Pierre Mondy; Basque in Le Misanthrope and Martine in The Learned Ladies (Les Femmes savantes) by Simon Eine; Mariane in The Miser (L'Avare) by Jean-Paul Roussillon; Angélique in The Imaginary Invalid (LeMalade imaginaire) by Gildas Bourdet; Julie in La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas by Jacques Lassalle; Dorine in Tartuffe by Marcel Bozonnet; and Marotte in Les Précieuses ridicules by Dan Jemmett. She met prominent directors who helped her hone her acting skills. Early in her career, Françoise Seigner entrusted her the role of the singer in Jean Racine’s Esther. Antoine Vitez directed herin Figaro’s Marriage (Le Mariage deFigaro) by Beaumarchais and Laurent Pelly in The Threepenny Opera (L'Opéra de quat'sous) by Bertolt Brecht. She also played under the direction of Valère Novarina, first in L'Espace furieux at the Comédie-Française, and later in L’Acte inconnu at the Festival d’Avignon and the Théâtre national de la Colline. Jean-Luc Boutté cast her in Le Roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo; Denis Podalydès in Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand; Marc Paquien in La Voix humaine, following La Dame de Monte-Carlo by Jean Cocteau and Antigone by Jean Anouilh; and Jérôme Deschamps in Un fil à la patte by Feydeau.

Some directors have called on her several times. Daniel Mesguich first directed her in Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne, then in Shakespeare’s The Tempest before offering her Hermione’s part in Racine’s Andromache in 2000. Muriel Mayette-Holtz cast her in Les Amants puérils by Fernand Crommelynck, in Clitandre by Corneille, La Dispute by Marivaux and Mystère bouffe et fabulages (version 1 and version 2) by Dario Fo. After Gogol’s Marriage in 2012 and Marcel Aymé’s La Tête des autres the following year, Sergi Belbel’s play Après la pluie in 2017 was the third collaboration with the Swiss director Lilo Baur.

In 1992, Véronique Vella founded Paris! Cabaret!, one of the first French-made shows. In 2008, she staged Cabaret érotique at the Studio-Théâtre and is a regular performerin the various shows such as Boris Vian and Léo Ferré, Quatre femmes et un piano, and L'Interlope (cabaret). She directed the stage performance of Marcel Aymé’s two novels Le Loup followed by Le Cerf et Le Chien, as well as Psyché, a play by Molière.

Outside of the Comédie-Française, she staged Marivaux’s La Fausse suivante at the Théâtre 14, Marcel Aymé’s La Carte de temps at the Essaïon Théâtre, as well as a musical entitled René Guy Cadou, la cinquième saison. She also released an album of songs from the show Liberté couleur de feuilles (Véronique Vella sings René Guy Cadou). For the cinema, she filmed with Claude Berri in Hard Off (La Débandade) and with Gabriel Aghion in The Libertine (Le libertin).

Véronique Vella is Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres) and of the National Order of Merit (chevalier de l'ordre national du Mérite).

During the 2018/2019 season, Véronique Vella will be playing in Bergman’s Fanny et Alexandre by Julie Deliquet. Her Grenier des acteurs is dedicated to José Luis Borges.