Thierry Lhermitte

Thierry Lhermitte, born on 24 November 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt (Seine), is a French actor, screenwriter, playwright, and film producer.

A co-founding member of the satirical comedy café-theatre troupe Le Splendid, he became popular from the 1970s onwards for his cult role as the seductive playboy Robert “Popeye” Lespinasse in Les Bronzés (1978) and Les Bronzés font du ski (1979) — a role he reprised in 2006 in Les Bronzés 3 — as well as for his role as Pierre Mortez in the play and film Le père Noël est une ordure (1982).

Subsequently, he distinguished himself in various popular French cinema comedies such as the Les Ripoux trilogy (1984-2003), Un Indien dans la ville (1994), and Le Dîner de cons (1998).

Appearing in several TV films during the 2000s, he played the title role in the series Doc Martin between 2011 and 2015, as well as the former police officer Paul Maisonneuve in the first season of the series Les Témoins, broadcast in 2015. In cinema, he notably gained recognition for his role as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Bertrand Tavernier's political satire Quai d'Orsay (2013), and for that of a man suffering from Alzheimer's disease in the dramatic comedy La Finale (2018).

Since 2019, he has been performing the one-man show Fleurs de soleil, and in 2026, in the film

La Bataille de Gaulle : J'écris ton nom, a historical film (departing from his usual register) where he plays General Giraud.

Passionate about science, he has been the patron of the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (FRM) since 2002. His regular visits to the laboratories of researchers funded by the foundation are the subject of a monthly column in the programme Grand Bien Vous Fasse on France Inter.