Astrology and the 2015 Oscars: Marion Cotillard
We have a lot of actors and actresses playing real people among this year’s nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress. In "Two Days, One Night", however, Marion Cotillard plays a fictional character. But her role may have a stronger connection with real life than most. She plays a woman laid off from her job. The plot is simple but the emotions that are engaged are deep and universal.
Cotillard’s horoscope is a bundle of contradictions. (Click here to see the chart.) She has Neptune powerfully placed on the I.C., an indication of a dreamy nature and a tendency toward escapism. This tendency is supported by the fact the Neptune sextiles her Sun in idealistic Libra, and by the fact that her Mercury in Libra is opposed to Jupiter and square the Moon. Emotions will often cloud her thinking and she is inclined to expect more from the world than it can give her.
At the same time, however, Cotillard’s Mercury is in a close trine with Mars. This sharpens her intellectual focus and gives her a mind eager for challenges. Her Sun is conjunct Pluto and her Moon conjuncts Saturn, aspect that provides for realism and practicality. She is suspicious of simple answers and is willing to dig beneath the surface to find the messy, complicated truth.
People with this sort of self-contradicting horoscope often have trouble finding their way in life. However, Cotillard seems to have turned these contradictions into the tools of her trade. They have allowed her to play a variety characters with absolute conviction.
Cotillard won the Oscar in 2008 for her role as Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose". At that time she was between two major transits. Uranus had just crossed her Descendant the previous December, and Saturn was hovering near her Ascendant and would cross it in August, 2008. In my book “Saturn Cycles: Mapping the Changes in your Life” I describe how the transit of Saturn across the Ascendant can be a powerful indicator of success.
Cotillard’s victory in 2008 came as something of a surprise. There were objections when she was hired to play Piaf because she was not considered “bankable” enough. But with these aspects behind her, and a superb performance, Cotillard silenced these naysayers and established herself as a major star.
That was seven years ago, and seven is the magic number for Saturn. Its cycles are frequently broken up into allotments of seven years. So, now we have Saturn hovering very near Cotillard’s I.C., approximately 90 degrees from her Ascendant. It looks like Cotillard’s career is moving very much in step with the cycles of Saturn.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the situation in Cotillard chart is different this time around. Uranus is not going to help her and Saturn will not actually move across her I.C. until next December, when people will be gearing up for another awards season. Also, when Saturn does conjunct Cotillard’s I.C., it will also conjoin her natal Neptune, an aspect that is likely to turn Saturn’s energy toward personal and spiritual goals.
So, even though winning the Oscar again this year would be a wonderful affirmation of Saturn’s cycles, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Saturn can reward us for the good work that we have done, but it also has a way of bringing to light areas of our life in which we have been inattentive and lax. My guess is that the lessons Cotillard will learn from this transit of Saturn will involve issues beyond her career.
