Originally from Toulouse, Christian Gonon was admitted at the Cours Jean Périmony in Paris at the age of 18. In 1982, he enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre. Prior to joining the Comédie-Française, Christian Gonon was lauded for his performances as the Count de Guiche in Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac under the direction of Jérôme Savary in 1983, as d’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers by Jean-Louis Martin Barbaz (for which he received the Jean Marais Award for Best Actor in 1991), and as de Lacroix in Georg Büchner's Danton’s Death (La Mort de Danton) directed by Philippe Lanton in 1998.

Following his interpretation of Eilif in Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children under the direction of Jorge Lavelli, Christian Gonon was appointed pensionnaire of the Company on the 1st of July 1998. Before becoming a sociétaire on the 1st of January 2009, he excelled in a number of roles, including: Maxime in Corneille’s Cinna directed by Simon Eine, Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice directed by Andrei Serban, the Man and the Fox in La Fontaine’s Fables directed by Robert Wilson, Cassius in Paul Claudel’s Tête d’or staged by Anne Delbée, De Ciz in Paul Claudel’s Partage de midi directed by Yves Beaunesne, Gremio in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew directed by Oskaras Koršunovas. He performed several characters in Alfred Jarry’s Ubu roi under the direction of Jean-Pierre Vincent and in Georges Feydeau’s Un fil à la patte by Jérôme Deschamps.

In 2015, Christian Hecq et Valérie Lessort entrusted him with the role of Ned Land in their staging of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, adapted from the novel by Jules Verne. That same year, Denis Podalydès, who had previously directed him in Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, offered him the roles of Astolfo and Montefeltro in his staging of Victor Hugo’s Lucrezia Borgia. In 2004, Christian Gonon himself directed Fabrice Melquiot’s Bouli Miro and assumed the title role. He created La seule certitude que j’ai, c’est d’être dans le doute after the texts written by Pierre Desproges and directed by Alain Lenglet et Marc Fayet in 2009.

As part of the 2016 Festival Singulis, he performed the monologue Company, an autobiographical short story by Samuel Beckett, which had first been interpreted on stage by Pierre Dux in 1984.

Christian Gonon’s filmography includes among other pictures Et si je parle directed by Sébastien Gabriel and Les hommes sont des rêves directed by Guillaume Georget, as well as a number of short films such as Memento by Jean-Max Peteau in 1992, which received the Grand Prix at Avoriaz Festival and the Audience Award at Clermont-Ferrand Festival in 1993. He is the French voice of Colin Firth and Christoph Waltz.