Pierre Niney

Pierre Niney is a French actor who has worked across cinema, television, and theatre. He gained widespread recognition for portraying fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent in a 2014 biographical film, winning a César Award for Best Actor. Over his career, he has appeared in acclaimed dramatic feature films, television projects, and stage productions.

Niney was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France, to a father who taught film studies at institutions such as Normale Sup, La Fémis, and Sciences Po, and a Belgian-born mother who authored creative leisure manuals. Raised in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, he began acting at eleven years old. After completing his baccalauréat littéraire at the Lycée Claude-Monet, he pursued formal dramatic training with Compagnie Pandora, followed by two years at the Cours Florent, before entering the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique in 2009.

At twenty-one, Niney became the youngest male member of the Comédie-Française, performing under stage directors including Julie Brochen, Vladimir Pankov, and Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota. He made his screen debut in the 2007 miniseries La dame d'Izieu, followed by film appearances in Nos 18 ans, LOL, The Army of Crime, and Romantics Anonymous. He landed his first lead film role in J'aime regarder les filles, which earned him a César Award nomination for most promising actor in 2012, an honor he was nominated for again the following year for Just Like Brothers.

Niney achieved major success portraying the title figure in the 2014 biopic Yves Saint Laurent, which brought him the César Award for Best Actor. To prepare for subsequent screen roles, he learned German and the violin for the 2016 film Frantz, and underwent four months of firefighter training, gaining nine kilograms of muscle for Sauver ou périr. His performances in Frantz, Boîte noire, and as Edmond Dantès in the 2024 adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo earned him further César Award nominations for Best Actor.

In 2024, Niney co-created, co-wrote, and starred alongside Igor Gotesman in Fiasco, a seven-episode Netflix comedy miniseries. Following the commercial success of The Count of Monte Cristo, it was announced that he would collaborate with the film's creative team on a new screen adaptation of Maurice Druon's novel series The Accursed Kings, focused on the fourteenth-century Capetian succession crisis.

Since 2008, Niney has been in a relationship with Australian actress and photographer Natasha Andrews. The couple has two daughters, born in 2017 and 2019.