Lyna Khoudri

Lyna Khoudri (لينا خضري; born 3 October 1992) is an Algerian-French actress. In 2017, she won the Orizzonti Award for Best Actress at the 74th Venice International Film Festival for The Blessed. In 2020, she won the César Award for Most Promising Actress for her performance in Papicha. In 2021, she portrayed a student activist in Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch. In 2023, Khoudri portrayed Constance Bonacieux in The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady. Khoudri has been a brand ambassador for the French fashion house Chanel since 2022.

Early life
Khoudri was born in 1992 in Algiers, Algeria, to a journalist father and a violinist mother. When Khoudri was 2 years old, the family moved to Aubervilliers, France, as exiles following death threats due to the danger of her father's profession during the Algerian Civil War.

At the age of 18, Khoudri acquired French citizenship.

Khoudri received her professional training at Théâtre national de la Colline in Paris.

Khoudri speaks French, Arabic and English.

Career
In 2014, Khoudri had her first acting role in the French television series Josephine, Guardian Angel.

In 2017, she won the Orizzonti Award for Best Actress at the 74th Venice International Film Festival for her performance in Sofia Djama's film The Blessed.

In 2019, she played Louna in six episodes of the Canal+ miniseries Savages, directed by Rebecca Zlotowski. That year, she also played Nedjma in Mounia Meddour's film Papicha, about a young Algerian woman who uses fashion as cultural resistance during the Algerian Civil War. Khoudri had Marion Cotillard as her Godmother for the César Awards Revelations dinner in January 2020. For her role in Papicha, she won the César Award for Most Promising Actress in February 2020.

In 2021, Khoudri played Juliette, a student activist and the girlfriend of Timothée Chalamet's character in Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch. Their storyline centers on a student riot. Khoudri attended the film's premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival where it competed for the Palme d'Or.

In 2022, Khoudri played Samia in Cédric Jimenez's November, for which she was nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 2023, Khoudri starred in the monologue Perdre son sac, written and directed by Pascal Rambert at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. She also portrayed Constance Bonacieux, the love interest of D'Artagnan (portrayed by François Civil) in two French film adaptations of Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel The Three Musketeers directed by Martin Bourboulon; The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady. The same year, she co-starred with Civil again in Romain Cogitore's romantic thriller A Place to Fight For (Une zone à défendre), the first French original film from Disney+, in which she played an environmental activist who falls in love with Civil's character, an undercover police officer.

In 2024, Khoudri starred in Bruno Dumont's sci-fi film The Empire, and in the Italian-Belgian-American drama film How Kids Roll, the directorial debut of Italian-American director Loris Lai, set in the Gaza Strip amidst the Israeli–Palestinian conflict during the Second Intifada in 2003,

Upcoming projects
In June 2023, it was announced that Khoudri will collaborate again with The Three Musketeers director Martin Bourboulon in a television series for Apple TV+ titled Carême, about the world's first celebrity chef, Marie-Antoine Carême, starring Benjamin Voisin in the title role and Khoudri as Henriette, Carême's lover.

In 2024, Khoudri will star in Tarik Saleh's upcoming film Les Aigles de la République, opposite Fares Fares.

In April 2024, it was announced that Khoudri will voice the female lead in the French-Belgian animated film In Waves, the feature directorial debut of Phuong Mai Nguyen.

In May 2024, Khoudri joined Martin Bourboulon's Afghanistan evacuation drama In The Hell of Kabul: 13 Days, 13 Nights.

Other work
Khoudri has been a brand ambassador for the French fashion house Chanel since 2022, after having collaborated with the brand since 2020, following their first collaboration for the 2020 César Awards Revelations. Khoudri made her catwalk debut during Chanel 2022/23 Cruise show in Monte Carlo, Monaco on 5 May 2022.