Maria de Medeiros, DamSE ( , complete name Maria de Medeiros Esteves Vitorino de Almeida) (born August 19, 1965 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese actress and director who has been involved in both European and American film productions. She is the daughter of musician and composer António Vitorino de Almeida.
Among Maria de Medeiros' most memorable film appearances are three early 1990s roles. Her considerable resemblance to Anaïs Nin landed her the primary role in Henry & June (1990) in which she played the author. In 1990, she played the role of Maria in Ken McMullen's lavish film about the rise of the Paris Commune 1871 and, in 1994, Medeiros appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, playing Butch Coolidge's (Bruce Willis) girlfriend Fabienne.
In 2003, she appeared as a hairdresser in the Spanish movie My Life Without Me starring Sarah Polley.
She has starred in the Canadian movie The Saddest Music in the World (2004) directed by Guy Maddin, alongside co-stars Isabella Rossellini and former Kids in the Hall actor Mark McKinney.
In 2007, she released an album, A Little More Blue, in which she performs songs by Brazilian musicians, including Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Ivan Lins and Dolores Duran. On the album, she sings in French ("Joana Francesa" by Chico Buarque), Portuguese and English ("A Little More Blue" by Caetano Veloso).
Maria de Medeiros is the older of three daughters by the pianist, maestro and composer 'António Vitorino DAlmeida and Maria Armanda Esteves. Her sisters are Inês de Medeiros, stage actress and film and stage director and Ana Medeiros, violinist, composer, and music teacher. Studied at Lycée Français Charles Le Pierre, Lisbon, and when she was 15 years old, she acted in her father's movie, Silvestre. Went to Paris in 1984, aiming to take a college degree in the Beaux Arts, and ended by taking Philosophy, and Drama instead, at the National Schools of Arts and Theatre Techniques. Lived and filmed in Portugal, and abroad, then she returned to Paris, where she is established since 1987. She married a Catalonian (Spain), and has two daughters. She acquired the French nationality because of her children, and because she has a French culture as well as a Portuguese one. She is fluent in Portuguese, French, English, German and Spanish.
