Gaël Morel

Morel was born in Villefranche-sur-Saône, Rhône, France, a town of 30,000 inhabitants outside Lyon. He grew up in the nearby village of Lacenas in the Villefranche district.

At the age of 15, Morel left home to pursue film studies in Lyon, and later moved to Paris. There he met French director André Téchiné, who cast him in the lead role of François in the multi-César Award-winning 1994 film Wild Reeds (Les Roseaux sauvages), which brought him fame, earning much critical praise for his performance and a 1995 César nomination for Most Promising Young Actor.

While his Wild Reeds co-stars Élodie Bouchez and Stéphane Rideau have both gone on to successful acting careers (he has often cast them in his own films), Morel has chosen to write and direct.