Pom Klementieff

Pom Alexandra Klementieff (French: [pɔm klemɑ̃tjɛf];^[1] born 3 May 1986^[2]) is a French actress.^[3][4] She is best known for playing Mantis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) since 2017^[5][6] and an assassin in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023).

Pom Klementieff
Klementieff in 2023
Born	Pom Alexandra Klementieff (1986-05-03) 3 May 1986 (age 38) Quebec City, Canada
Citizenship	France
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2007–present
Signature

Early life

Klementieff was born in Quebec City, Canada, on May 3, 1986 to Korean mother Yu Ri Park and Russian-French father Alexis Klementieff,^[7][8] who was working there as a consul with the government of France. She is a French citizen and does not have Canadian citizenship due to jus soli not applying to children of diplomats.^[9][10][11] Her grandfather was Russian painter Eugene Klementieff.^[12]

Her parents chose the name "Pom" because it is similar in pronunciation to the Korean words for both "spring" (봄) and "tiger" (범).^[10] They lived in Japan and Ivory Coast before settling in France.

Klementieff's father died of cancer when she was five, and her mother had schizophrenia and was unable to care for her children,^[10] so Klementieff was raised by her paternal uncle and aunt.^[11] Her uncle, whom she described as "like [her] second father", died on her 18th birthday, and her older brother Namou died by suicide seven years later, on her 25th birthday.^[10][13] Klementieff briefly studied law in an undergraduate capacity after her uncle's death to appease her aunt, but did not find it appealing. She also worked as a waitress and saleswoman in France.^[10] She started acting at age 19 at the Cours Florent drama school in Paris. A few months into her education, she won a theater competition and two years of free classes with the school's top teachers.^[14]

Career

2007–2012: Early career

Klementieff at the 2018 Brussels Comic Con

Klementieff's first professional acting job was the French independent film Après lui (2007), portraying the stepdaughter of the protagonist played by Catherine Deneuve.^[11] Filming for her scenes took three days. In one scene, Klementieff was supposed to push someone down a set of stairs but accidentally fell down the stairs herself, and director Gaël Morel kept that shot in the final film.

Her first leading role was in Loup (2009), a French film about a tribe of reindeer herders in the Siberian mountains. During filming, Klementieff stayed in a camp, hours from the nearest village, where temperatures dropped well below zero. She befriended nomads who lived there, worked with real wolves, rode reindeer, and swam with a horse in a lake.^[14]

2013–present: Breakthrough

Klementieff made her Hollywood debut in Spike Lee's Oldboy (2013), a remake of the South Korean film of the same name.^[14][15] She portrayed Haeng-bok, the bodyguard of the antagonist played by Sharlto Copley. A fan of the original film, Klementieff heard about the part through Roy Lee, a producer with the remake, and took boxing lessons after learning the role involved martial arts. After showcasing her boxing skills during her audition, Lee asked her to go home and come back wearing a more feminine outfit and make-up, like her character in the film.^[11][10] She contributed some of her own clothes to the character's wardrobe,^[11] and trained three hours a day for two months for an on-screen fight with star Josh Brolin.^[11][15] Klementieff herself came up with the name Haeng-bok, Korean for "happiness", after Lee asked her to research possible names for the character.^[11][14]

Klementieff moved to Los Angeles after Oldboy was filmed and began pursuing more Hollywood auditions.^[11][14] She continued taekwondo after the film, and has a purple belt as of the summer of 2014.^[11] Her next acting role was the film Hacker's Game (2015), in which she plays a hacker she compared to Lisbeth Salander from the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Klementieff used her boxing skills again in the film, and due to the movie's low budget, she had to do her own make-up and choose her own wardrobe.^[14] It was her idea to dye her hair purple for the role, to which the directors first objected but later acquiesced.^[11] In 2017, she appeared in the romance drama Newness and the black comedy-drama Ingrid Goes West.

Klementieff received worldwide recognition when she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Mantis, appearing in the films Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).^[16] In 2019, she appeared in an episode of the Netflix science fiction anthology series Black Mirror, the thriller film Uncut Gems, and had voice roles in the animated supernatural comedy film The Addams Family. In 2020, she had a recurring role as Martel in the HBO science fiction series Westworld.

In 2023 she reprised her role as Mantis in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and appeared as the enigmatic assassin Paris in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. She will reprise her role in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in 2025.

She played Marianna in the 2024 thriller The Killer's Game starring Dave Bautista.

Personal life

Klementieff is multilingual. She learned English from watching American sitcoms.^[17][18]

Filmography

Film

Key

†	Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2007	After Him	Emilie
2008	The Easy Way	NHI
2009	Loup	Nastazya
2011	Borderline	Naomi
	Delicacy	The Waitress
	Sleepless Night	Lucy
	Love Lasts Three Years	Julia
	Silhouettes	Valerie
2012	Radiostars	The Pizza Girl
	Porn in the Hood	Tia
2013	Paris Or Perish	Jess
	Oldboy	Haeng-bok
2015	Hacker's Game	Loise
2017	Newness	Bethany
	Ingrid Goes West	Harley Chung	[19]
	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2	Mantis	[20]
2018	Avengers: Infinity War		[21][22][23][24]
	Time of Day	Herself	Short film
2019	Avengers: Endgame	Mantis
	Uncut Gems	Lexis	Deleted scenes
	The Addams Family	Layla & Kayla (voice)
2021	Save Ralph	Cinnamon (voice)	Short film [25][26]
	Thunder Force	Laser	[27]
	The Suicide Squad	Dancer	Uncredited cameo
2022	Thor: Love and Thunder	Mantis	[28][29]
2023	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3		[30][31][32]
	Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One	Paris	[33][34]
2024	The Killer's Game	Marianna Antoinette	[35]
2025	Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning †	Paris	Post-production [36]

Television

Key

†	Denotes series that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2009	Pigalle, la nuit	Sandra	8 episodes
2019	Black Mirror	Roxette	Episode: "Striking Vipers" [37]
2020	Westworld	Martel	3 episodes
2022	The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special	Mantis	Television Special
2023	Marvel Studios: Assembled	Herself	Episode: "The Making of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 "

References

1. "Stan Lee's Alliances : L'éclair du génie - Backstage avec Pom Klementieff". Audible. 10 October 2019. Archived from the original on 27 October 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
2. "Qui es-tu Pom Klementieff?/Who are you Pom Klementieff?". Première (in French). France. 7 July 2012. Archived from the original on 1 January 2018. Retrieved 1 January 2018. Miss Klementieff est née au Québec le 3 mai 1986, d'un père russe et d'une mère coréenne./Miss Klementieff was born in Quebec on 3 May 1986 to a Russian father and a Korean mother.Additional on 1 January 2018.
3. "The May 7 Edition". The Sydney Morning Herald. 7 May 2023. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
4. Idato, Michael (6 May 2023). "How Pom Klementieff went from struggling Hollywood actor to Marvel movie star". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
5. "Pom Klementieff: What to Know About Guardians of the Galaxy Actress". Peoplemag. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
6. Davids, Brian (2 May 2023). "Karen Gillan and Pom Klementieff Talk 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' Emotions and the Case of the Missing Chris Pratt Doll". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 29 May 2023. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
7. "Alexis Klementieff". Canada Gazette. Vol. 119, no. 41. 12 October 1985. p. 6445.
8. World Guide to Foreign Services, vol. 1, World Guides Internationale Publikationen, 1986, p. 261
9. @PomKlementieff (2 May 2017). "I'm French, not Canadian! I was born in Quebec under diplomatic passport. Was never able to get the Canadian passport because of that. Xxx" (Tweet). Retrieved 24 July 2023 – via Twitter.
10. Han, Steve (November 2013). "Korean French Actress Pom Klementieff Makes US Debut in 'Oldboy' Remake". KoreAm. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 5 July 2014. So I told [filmmaker Spike Lee], my father died when I was 5. My mother, she is schizophrenic, so she couldn't take care of me and my brother, who died by suicide a few months before the audition [for Lee's remake of Oldboy].
11. "Actress Pom Klementieff from Spike Lee's Oldboy". Filler Magazine (Interview). Vol. 2, no. 5. Interviewed by Lee, Jennifer. Summer 2014. Archived from the original on 7 July 2014. Retrieved 2 July 2014.
12. @pom.klementieff (25 December 2014). "My father Alexis painted by my grandfather Ievgueni Klementieff". Archived from the original on 24 December 2021. Retrieved 23 July 2023 – via Instagram.
13. Maida, Jerome (2 May 2017). "In playing Mantis, Pom Klementieff Keeps Laughing Through The Pain". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on 3 June 2023. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
14. "Q&A with Pom Klementieff". Anthem Magazine (Interview). Interviewed by Chang, Kee. 2 July 2013. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
15. De Ville, Reece (7 April 2014). "Interview: Oldboy's ass kicking, earth moving Pom Klementieff". TheDigitalFix.com. Archived from the original on 23 July 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
16. Romano, Nick (28 January 2017). "Avengers: Infinity War adds Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy 2". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 30 January 2017. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
17. ""You DISGUST Me!" Guardians Of The Galaxy 3 Karen Gillan Pom Klementieff French Vs Scottish Slang!". YouTube. 3 May 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
18. "Mission: Impossible's Pom Klementieff learned English by watching 30 Rock #shorts E! News". YouTube. 24 June 2023. Archived from the original on 11 November 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
19. "Indie Focus: In the moment with 'Ingrid Goes West,' 'Good Time' and 'Whose Streets?'". Los Angeles Times. 13 August 2017. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
20. "'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2' movie review by Kenneth Turan". Los Angeles Times. 3 May 2017. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
21. Berman, Judy (30 April 2018). "Seen 'Avengers: Infinity War'? Here's What to Read About That Shocking Ending". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
22. Rychter, Tacey (3 May 2018). "What Movies to See (or Skip) in Australian Cinemas This May". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
23. Schetzer, Alana (2 June 2018). "Avengers: Infinity War sees the ultimate Marvel versus DC Comics battle". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
24. "'Avengers: Infinity War' is fun, silly and incredibly dark". HS Insider. 15 June 2018. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
25. Amundson, Sara; Block, Kitty (6 April 2021). "In HSI's 'Save Ralph,' a lovable spokesbunny makes a case for ending cosmetics animal testing". HSLF. Archived from the original on 23 May 2023. Retrieved 24 May 2023.
26. "Zac Efron, Olivia Munn, and More Lend Voices to Film About 'Terrible' Cosmetics Animal Testing". Peoplemag. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
27. "Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer Become Superheroes in First Trailer for Netflix's Thunder Force". Peoplemag. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
28. "Everything to Know About Thor: Love and Thunder". Peoplemag. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
29. "Thor Director Taika Waititi Did Not Remember Natalie Portman Was in Star Wars: 'I Forgot!'". Peoplemag. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
30. Brody, Richard (8 May 2023). ""Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," Reviewed: Who's Restraining Whom?". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
31. Bradshaw, Peter (28 April 2023). "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 review – James Gunn's fun and energetic threequel". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 8 May 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
32. "Review: In 'Guardians 3,' ultra-weird superhero fun doesn't have to be Rocket science". Los Angeles Times. 28 April 2023. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
33. Dargis, Manohla (11 July 2023). "'Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One' Review: Still Running". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
34. Kermode, Mark; critic, Observer film (9 July 2023). "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One review – Tom Cruise is still taking our breath away". the Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
35. Jones, Callum (14 April 2024). "Dave Bautista's Upcoming Movie Just Got More Fun Thanks To This $4.5 Billion Franchise". Screenrant. Retrieved 1 May 2024.
36. "Mission: Impossible 8 Trailer Reveals 1 Villain Will Join Ethan's Team". Comic Book Resources. 12 November 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
37. "See Miley Cyrus (as a Purple-Haired Pop Star!) and Anthony Mackie in New Black Mirror Season 5 Posters". Peoplemag. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.

External links

• Pom Klementieff at IMDb
• Pettit, Stephanie (5 May 2017). "Meet Pom Klementieff, the Actress Behind the Buzzed-About New Character Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2". People. Retrieved 3 October 2017.