Artist star seeks Hollywood fame

French actor Jean Dujardin, star of this year’s best film Oscar winner The Artist, is in talks to co-star in Martin Scorsese’s latest picture, his Hollywood agent said.

Mr Dujardin, who won the best actor Academy Award in February for his role in the silent black and white film, is tipped to join Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in Mr Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

“It is confirmed that Jean is in talks for this,” his Los Angeles-based agent Marie Sheehy said, confirming a report in the industry daily Variety.

The movie is based on a book by former disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort about his rise and fall on Wall Street, along with the hard-partying lifestyle and his stormy personal life, Variety said.

The 39-year-old French actor would play Jean-Jacques Handali, a smooth-talking Swiss banker engaged in money laundering for Belfort − who himself was jailed for money laundering in the 1990s − played by Mr DiCaprio.

Filming will begin this summer in New York.

Mr Dujardin has been a huge star in his homeland for years but was virtually unknown elsewhere before the Oscars triumph for The Artist, which made him the first French actor to win an Academy Award.

Coincidentally, the French film’s main rival in February was the lavish 3D adventure Hugo − whose director Mr Scorsese could now be in charge of Mr Dujardin in The Wolf of Wall Street.

The film would arguably mark another step in his admission into the Hollywood big league, starring alongside an A-lister like Mr DiCaprio, after what was initially a relatively low-key French film like The Artist.

The Gallic star’s latest role is in The Players (Les Infideles), released in France in February and produced by the Weinstein Company, which was behind The Artist.

He is also attached to star with Tim Roth in Mobius by French director Eric Rochant, according to Variety.