Nadia Farès was found floating unconscious in a Paris swimming pool on April 11, 2026, and died six days later after remaining in a coma, her daughters confirmed through Agence France-Presse.
The Morocco-born actress, who rose to international prominence with her role in the 2000 thriller Les Rivières pourpres (The Crimson Rivers), had been scheduled to begin filming a new action-comedy as both writer and director in September — a project that now remains unmade.
Her death at 57 closes a career marked by both cinematic visibility and personal resilience, having undergone brain surgery for an aneurysm in 2007 and three heart operations in the years that followed, details she spoke of openly in interviews.
Farès first gained notice in French television with roles in Counterstrike and The Exile, but it was her performance alongside Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel in Mathieu Kassovitz’s The Crimson Rivers that brought her to global attention, launching a filmography that spanned action, horror, and international co-productions.
She appeared in the 2007 film War with Jason Statham and Jet Li, the horror film Storm Warning, and later joined Gérard Depardieu in Netflix’s first French-language original series, Marseille, where she played Vanessa d’Abrantes across two seasons before its cancellation in 2018.
Her final on-screen role came in the 2025 film Toujours possible, in which she portrayed a 55-year-old biologist seeking to become a mother — a part that now reads with unintended poignancy given her own private struggles with health, and family.
In the wake of her passing, her daughters released a joint statement to AFP expressing profound grief while requesting privacy: “France has lost a great artist, but for us, It’s above all a mother we have just lost.”
One daughter, Cylia Chasman — an influencer and the child of Farès and American producer Steve Chasman — shared a separate tribute on Instagram, calling her mother her “best friend” and writing, “Mama. This is a heartbreak I will never gain over.”
The incident occurred at a private sports club in Paris’s 9th arrondissement, where Farès was found unresponsive in the pool; emergency responders pulled her out, but she never regained consciousness, remaining in a coma until her death on Friday, April 17.
Though no official cause of death has been released, the timing — coming just days after she was pulled from the water — has prompted quiet speculation among those who knew her history of cardiovascular and neurological procedures, though no link has been established.
Her passing removes a rare bridge between French auteur cinema and international genre filmmaking, an actress who moved comfortably between the auteur-driven projects of Kassovitz and the global action cinema of Hollywood co-productions.
In an industry where actresses of her generation often face diminishing roles after 50, Farès had continued to work, recently taking on maternal roles that mirrored her own life — making the timing of her death sense, to some, like a cruel echo of the stories she chose to advise.
What was Nadia Farès best known for?
She was best known for her breakout role in the 2000 film The Crimson Rivers, where she starred alongside Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel in a critically acclaimed thriller that launched her international career.
Did Nadia Farès have any known health issues before her death?
Yes, she publicly disclosed undergoing brain surgery for an aneurysm in 2007 and three heart operations over a four-year period, speaking openly about her medical history in interviews.