Charlotte Lucy Gainsbourg (born 21 July 1971) is an Anglo-French actress and singer. After releasing an album with her father at the age of fifteen, more than twenty years passed before she released three albums as an adult (5:55, IRM and Stage Whisper) to commercial and critical success. Gainsbourg has also appeared in many films, including several directed by Lars von Trier, and has received both a César Award and the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award. She is the daughter of English actress Jane Birkin and French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.
Gainsbourg was born in London, to Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, and was raised in Paris. Her maternal grandmother was actress Judy Campbell and her uncle is the screenwriter Andrew Birkin, who directed her in The Cement Garden. Her father was Jewish and her mother is from a Protestant background. Gainsbourg attended École Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel in Paris and Collège Alpin International Beau Soleil in Switzerland.
Gainsbourg's longtime partner is French-Israeli actor/director Yvan Attal, and together they have three children: a son, Ben (b. 1997) and daughters Alice (b. 2002) and Joe (b. 2011).
On 5 September 2007, Gainsbourg was rushed to a Paris hospital where she underwent surgery for a cerebral hemorrhage. She had been experiencing headaches since a minor waterskiing accident in the United States several weeks prior.