Loan Chabanol

Loan Chabanol (1982-    ) is a French actress, model and painter of Vietnamese, German and Italian descent.

Originally from Paris, France, as a child Loan Chabanol studied art with renowned artist Bernard Bistes.  At the age of 16, she signed with Elite Modeling Agency and embarked on her career as an international fashion model.  During her wildly successful modeling career, Loan Chabanol appeared on advertisements for Chanel and graced the covers of such prestigious fashion magazines like Elle, Glamour and Marie Claire.  After more than a decade working as a fashion model, at the age of 28 she decided to leave her native Paris and resettled in New York where she would pursue another dream of hers which was to become an actress.  She enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute to study acting.  In 2013, she landed her first acting job portraying the role of Buster Keaton in a short film by actor James Franco, Psycho Nacirema.  That same year, Loan Chabanol appeared in her first feature film, Fading Gigolo, starring John Turturro, Woody Allen, Sharon Stone and French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis.  The following year, she teamed up with James Franco again to costar in the feature film, Third Person.  Her latest feature film to date, The Transporter Refueled, was written by Luc Besson, former husband of fellow Eurasian actress, Maiwenn, and released in 2015.


In September of 2015, Loan Chabanol was able to live out one of her childhood dreams when she opened her first solo art exhibition, Born in Blue, held at the Lightbox in New York City.  Loan Chabanol has also formed her own production company, Loanimation.  This is the second time that a major Eurasian model of part-Vietnamese descent has made the shift from the world of high fashion to art.  The first was former Christian Lacroix model-turned actress, painter and New York socialite, Anh Duong, back in the 1990s.  

Link(s):

• Another 50 Most Beautiful Vietnamese Women of All Time
• Loan Chabanol Official Website