Pierre Niney was born in Boulogne-Billancourt (France), on March 13, 1989. He began his acting career at the age of eleven and joined the Comédie-Française troupe on October 16, 2010, when he was only twenty-one, which made him the youngest resident of the troupe. After several appearances in TV films and short films, he obtained several roles in cinema, such as in
LOL (Laughing Out Loud) (2008),
Army of Crime (2009) and
Romantics Anonymous (2010) and was chosen to play Yves Saint-Laurent in the eponymous film directed by
Jalil Lespert. For this role, Niney won the
Patrick Dewaere prize and the César for best actor (thus becoming the youngest actor to win this prize too). He left the Comédie Française on January 15, 2015. In the same year, he starred in the thriller
A Perfect Man (2015). Also in 2016, Niney took the lead role in
Frantz (2016) directed by
François Ozon and played
Philippe Cousteau in
The Odyssey (2016), a biopic based on the life of French Commander
Jacques-Yves Cousteau.