Raphaël Quenard

Raphaël Quenard (born 16 May 1991) is a French actor. After starring in small-scale short films and television productions as well as a variety of supporting film roles, Quenard earned acclaim for his breakthrough performances in Junkyard Dog (2023) and Yannick (2023). He received 3 nominations at the 49th César Awards, including Best Actor for Yannick, and won Best Male Revelation for Junkyard Dog.

Early life and education
Raphaël Quenard was born on 16 May 1991 in Échirolles, a banlieue located south of Grenoble. His father was a researcher who studied thermal conductivity and his mother was a worker for the insurance company MACIF. Quenard spent his childhood in the commune of Gières, located to the east of Grenoble.

Quenard was a good student and earned a baccalauréat S (scientifique). Wishing to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather who had a distinguished career in the military, Quenard entered the École des Pupilles de l'Air, a military training academy in Montbonnot-Saint-Martin, where he prepared for enrollment in a grande école. However, he quickly left to study chemistry. Between 2012 and 2013, Quenard was a visiting researcher at Imperial College London. In 2014, he graduated with a grande école diploma from the Paris Technical Institute of Chemistry, PSL University. For six months, he worked as a parliamentary assistant to Bernadette Laclais, then a member of the Socialist Party, who served as deputy for Savoie's 4th constituency in the National Assembly.

2019–2022: Early roles
Raphaël Quenard began his acting career in Paris as a student of Jean-Laurent Cochet, who, interested in the potential of the young actor, welcomed him into his classes for free. Quenard then appeared in several amateur short films and joined Houda Benyamina's 1000 Visages association, which promotes the integration of disadvantaged young people into the world of cinema. He first met Emma Benestan while in a workshop hosted by the director. She directed him in her 2019 short film L'Amour du risque, then in her 2021 feature-length debut Fragile. On the set, he met cinematographer Émilie Noblet who advised him to audition for the series HP. Quenard landed the role of the manic-depressive intern Jimmy in the series, which was broadcast for two seasons on OCS from 2018 to 2020.

Quenard made his feature film debut as a physics teacher in Bertrand Bonello's Zombi Child. In 2020, he starred in a lead role in Élie Girard's short film Les Mauvais Garçons, which won Best Fiction Short Film at the 47th César Awards. He followed it with small roles in several features, including Quentin Dupieux's Mandibles (2020) and Smoking Causes Coughing (2022), Michel Hazanavicius's Final Cut (2022) Jacques Audiard's Paris, 13th District (2021), and Cédric Jimenez's November (2022). In 2021, he was featured in the third season of the Netflix series Family Business.

2023–present: Breakthrough and acclaim
In 2023, Quenard established himself as a leading screen actor, first with his interpretation of Mirales, one of the main characters in Jean-Baptiste Durand's feature-length debut film Junkyard Dog. Alongside Anthony Bajon and Galatea Bellugi, he portrayed a young man who confronts boredom, crime, friendship and jealousy in the countryside in Hérault. Quenard fought to obtain the role by attending screenings of Durand's short films and writing him several messages on Facebook, in order to be able to meet him. Although it sold a modest 83,000 admissions in France, Junkyard Dog received unanimous critical acclaim. That same year, Quenard played the title role in Quentin Dupieux's black comedy Yannick, about a disappointed audience member who heckles a mediocre stage production in Paris and proceeds to take the entire theatre hostage and rewrite the play under his own direction. Yannick was a commercial and critical success, selling over 200,000 admissions in its first two weeks at the box office. Quenard also appeared in Jeanne Herry's ensemble drama All Your Faces.

In 2024, he received the Lumières Award for Best Male Revelation for his performance in Junkyard Dog (2023). He also received three nominations at the 49th César Awards, including Best Actor (for Yannick) and Best Documentary Short Film as director and producer of L'Acteur, ou la surprenante vertu de l'incompréhension, and won Best Male Revelation (for Junkyard Dog).

Quenard stars in Gilles Lellouche's upcoming romantic comedy musical film Beating Hearts, which is set for release in 2024 and in which he plays alongside François Civil, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Alain Chabat and Benoît Poelvoorde. Quenard has also completed filming on a new film by Quentin Dupieux, The Second Act, which includes Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon and Louis Garrel.

Personal life
Raphaël Quenard has been distinguished for his pronounced working-class provincial accent, which critics have noted as being difficult to place geographically. When questioned about his "accent" by Yann Barthès on Quotidien, Quenard explained: "It's my voice. What you hear is not an accent, it's a slightly displaced nasal septum which gives a sort of timbre of having the cold". Numéro called it a "a disconcerting accent, one which rejects all forms of academicism".