As you’ve likely heard by now, French Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée died unexpectedly at the age of 58 over the weekend. Longtime producing partner Nathan Ross confirmed his death in a statement shared with various trades. According to Vallée’s rep (via The Hollywood Reporter), he died suddenly from a suspected heart attack in his cabin near Quebec City, Canada.
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Vallée was known for directing the Emmy-winning “Big Little Lies” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” which earned Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto Academy Award honors for their Best Actor and Best Supporting turns in the movie. Vallée received acclaim for directing “C.R.A.Z.Y.” (2005) and “The Young Victoria” (2009), but it was the long-gestating “Dallas Buyer Club” that shot him on the Hollywood A-list. After that, seemingly every actor was clamoring to work with him, and the subsequent line-up included “Wild” (2014) with Reese Witherspoon, one of her most acclaimed performances to date, “Demolition” with Jake Gyllenhaal in 2015, and then a huge swing into television with “Big Little Lies” which bagged Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Zoe Kravitz, Shailene Woodley and more, and his last project, 2018’s “Sharp Objects” which lured Amy Adams to HBO. While “True Detective” in 2014 was a major forerunning TV series in luring huge A-list talent to TV, “Big Little Lies” took this idea to the next level and scored massive Emmy success for its efforts.
Tributes have been pouring out of Hollywood, many from his various collaborators. “My heart is broken,” Reese Witherspoon wrote on her various social media. “I will always remember you as the sun goes down. Chasing the light. On a mountain in Oregon. On a beach in Monterey. Making sure we all caught a little magic in this lifetime,” she posted on Instagram with various photos of cast members working with Vallée. “I love you, Jean-Marc. Until we meet again.”
“The Big Little Lies” cast members were amongst the first celebrities to react. “It’s hard to imagine someone as vital, energetic, and present as Jean-Marc being gone. I’m shattered,” Nicole Kidman wrote in a statement. “He was at the center of my creative universe, and I can’t overstate his significance to me. Jean-Marc was not only responsible for some of the most rewarding professional experiences of my career, but his friendship, kindness, and love were an inspiring force I will carry with me. I will always cherish those nights filming above the crashing waves of Big Sur…it doesn’t get better than that. I am forever grateful for my time shared with this extraordinary human. Forever Jean-Marc.”
Shailene Woodley said she was in “complete and utter shock” on her Instagram stories. “I guess somehow I know you will turn it into a grand adventure … one for the books,” she continued. “One I can’t wait to read & to watch when my time comes. It doesn’t make sense though dude. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe when we wake up tomorrow, you’ll be there laughing, saying it was just a satirical short film you made. That it’s not real.”
Laura Dern remembered him as “one of our great and purest artists and dreamers” and a “beloved friend.” “Our hearts are broken,” she added.
In a statement and video from French Canadian media, friend, peer, and fellow filmmaker Denis Villeneuve described Vallée as a “big brother.” “Jean-Marc for me, first of all, was a tremendous artist, a poet — someone that was a source of inspiration,” Villeneuve wrote. “And, if I can say, kind of a big brother to me and several friends. He was a little bit older than us and had much more experience, and he was the first one to cross the border. “He was someone that had the generosity to open his house to us and share his stories and adventures to inspire us. He was someone that loved to share, and that’s the thing that I will remember the most: his tremendous generosity.”
“With a gentle hand and heart Jean-Marc was a true receiver — he didn’t romanticize life so much as he saw life romantic — from the struggle to the pain to the wink and the whisper, love stories were everywhere in his eye,” Matthew McConaughey wrote on social media and his “Dallas Buyers Club” co-star Jared Leto called Vallée “a filmmaking force and a true artist who changed my life.”
“He was a soulful artist, an extraordinary filmmaker, a wonderful father to his two wonderful sons, and a treasured friend to me and to so many,” said author Cheryl Strayed who wrote the “Wild” memoir that Vallée adapted for Reese Witherspoon to star in. ‘Now we have each other forever,’ we said to each other as we came to the end of the intense time during which we made Wild and became like family. And it was true. He will forever be in my heart.”
“You fearlessly fought for creativity, imagination, honesty, passion, magic, and all the things we’re afraid to lose. My friend, this world has dimmed today,” wrote director Alma Har’el (“Honey Boy“). Jennifer Garner, who also had a role in “Dallas Buyers Club,” posted a photo of her with Vallée to her Instagram stories, writing, “What an unimaginable loss.”
While Vallée had no unfinished projects on the table, he was executive producing the TV drama “The Players Table,” with Sydney Sweeney and Halsey, and both the actors also posted their tributes on social media.
Read more various Hollywood tributes to Vallée below.