Pom Klementieff
Pom Alexandra Klementieff (born 3 May 1986)[1] is a French[lower-alpha 1] actress and model. She was trained at the Cours Florent drama school in Paris and appeared in such French films as The Easy Way (2008) and Sleepless Night (2011), before making her American film debut in Oldboy (2013).
Pom Klementieff | |
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.jpg.webp) Klementieff in 2019 | |
| Born | Pom Alexandra Klementieff 3 May 1986 Quebec City, Quebec, Canada |
| Education | Cours Florent |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 2007–present |
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Klementieff received worldwide recognition for her role as Mantis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Early life
Pom Klementieff was born in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, to a Korean mother and French-Russian father, who was working there as a consul with the government of France. She is a French citizen, and does not have Canadian citizenship because jus soli does not apply to children of diplomats.[3][4][5] Her grandfather was the Russian painter Eugene Klementieff.[6] Her parents chose the name "Pom" because it is similar in pronunciation to the Korean words for both "spring" (봄) and "tiger" (범).[4] Klementieff lived in Canada for one year before her family began travelling extensively due to her father's job.[7] They lived in Japan and Côte d'Ivoire, before settling in France.
Klementieff's father died of cancer when she was five, and her mother had schizophrenia and was unable to care for children,[4] so Klementieff was raised by her paternal uncle and aunt.[3] Her uncle, whom she described as "like [her] second father", died on her 18th birthday, and her older brother committed suicide seven years later, on her 25th birthday.[4] Klementieff briefly attended law school after her uncle's death to appease her aunt but did not find the career path appealing. She also worked as a waitress and saleswoman in France.[4] She started acting at age 19 at the Cours Florent drama school in Paris. A few months into her education, she won a theatre competition that awarded her free classes for two years with the school's top teachers.[7]
Career
2007–2012: Early career
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Klementieff's first professional acting job was the French independent film Après lui (2007), portraying the stepdaughter of the protagonist played by Catherine Deneuve.[3] Filming for her scenes took three days. During one scene, Klementieff was supposed to push someone down a set of stairs but accidentally fell down the stairs herself, and director Gaël Morel kept that shot in the final film.
Her first leading role was in Loup (2009), a French film about a tribe of reindeer herders in the Siberian mountains. During filming, Klementieff stayed in a camp, hours from the nearest village, where temperatures dropped well below zero. During filming she befriended nomads who lived there, worked with real wolves, rode reindeer, and swam with a horse in a lake.[7]
2013–present: Breakthrough
Klementieff made her Hollywood debut in Spike Lee's Oldboy (2013), a remake of the South Korean film of the same name.[7][8] She portrayed Haeng-bok, the bodyguard of the antagonist played by Sharlto Copley. A fan of the original film, Klementieff heard about the part through Roy Lee, a producer with the remake, and took boxing lessons after learning the role involved martial arts. After showcasing her boxing skills during her audition, Lee asked her to go home and come back wearing a more feminine outfit and make-up, like her character in the film.[3][4] She contributed some of her own clothes to the character's wardrobe,[3] and trained three hours a day for two months for an on-screen fight with star Josh Brolin.[3][8] Klementieff came up with the name Haeng-bok, Korean for "happiness", herself after Lee asked her to research possible names for the character.[3][7]
Klementieff moved to Los Angeles after Oldboy was filmed and began pursuing more Hollywood auditions.[3][7] She continued taekwondo after the film, and has a purple belt as of the summer of 2014.[3] Her next acting role was the film Hacker's Game (2015), in which she plays a hacker she compared to Lisbeth Salander from the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Klementieff used her boxing skills again in the film, and due to the movie's low budget, she had to do her own make-up and choose her own wardrobe.[7] It was her idea to dye her hair purple for the role, to which the directors first objected but later acquiesced.[3] In 2017, she appeared in the romance drama Newness and the black comedy-drama Ingrid Goes West.
Klementieff received worldwide recognition when she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Mantis, appearing in the films Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).[9] In 2019, she appeared in an episode of the Netflix science fiction anthology series Black Mirror, the thriller film Uncut Gems, and had voice roles in the animated supernatural comedy film The Addams Family. In 2020, she had a recurring role as Martel in the HBO science fiction series Westworld.
Filmography
Film
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Denotes films that have not yet been released |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Pigalle, la nuit | Sandra | 8 episodes |
| 2019 | Black Mirror | Roxette | Episode: "Striking Vipers" |
| 2020 | Westworld | Martel | 3 episodes |
Notes
- Klementieff clarified her nationality in a tweet.[2]
References
- "Qui es-tu Pom Klementieff?/Who are you Pom Klementieff?". Première (in French). France. 7 July 2012. Archived from the original on 1 January 2018. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
Miss Klementieff est née au Québec le 3 mai 1986, d'un père russe et d'une mère coréenne./Miss Klementieff was born in Quebec on May 3, 1986 to a Russian father and a Korean mother.
Additional WebCitation archive on 1 January 2018. - Klementieff, Pom [@pomklementieff] (28 July 2016). "I'm French. NOT Canadian-French. Born in Quebec because my dad was a consul but couldn't get the double nationality. I was not allowed to" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 30 April 2017. Retrieved 30 April 2017 – via Twitter.
- "Actress Pom Klementieff from Spike Lee's Oldboy". Filler Magazine. 2 (5). Summer 2014. Archived from the original on 6 December 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2014. Additional Archive.is archive on 7 July 2014.
- Han, Steve (November 2013). "Korean French Actress Pom Klementieff Makes US Debut in 'Oldboy' Remake". KoreAm. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
So I told [filmmaker Spike Lee], my father died when I was 5. My mother, she is schizophrenic, so she couldn’t take care of me and my brother, who committed suicide a few months before the audition [for Lee's remake of Oldboy].
- I'm French, not Canadian! I was born in Quebec under diplomatic passport. Was never able to get the Canadian passport because of that. Xxx.
- https://www.instagram.com/p/xCQx_ZR2N6/
- Chang, Mina (2 July 2013). "Q&A with Pom Klementieff". Anthem Magazine. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
- De Ville, Reece (April 7, 2014). "Interview: Oldboy's ass kicking, earth moving Pom Klementieff". TheDigitalFix.com. Archived from the original on July 23, 2017. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
- Romano, Nick (28 January 2017). "Avengers: Infinity War adds Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy 2". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on January 29, 2017. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pom Klementieff. |
- Pom Klementieff at IMDb
- Pom Klementieff at AllMovie
- Pettit, Stephanie (5 May 2017). "Meet Pom Klementieff, the Actress Behind the Buzzed-About New Character Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2". People. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
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