The star of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie and his new film, A Very Long Engagement, opening on Friday January 21, has the same large eyes and disarming natural beauty.
And while the dimpled 26-year-old insists she "doesn't feel like a star", don't be fooled, the camera loves Audrey and so do audiences.
Her performance as the upbeat and eccentric Amelie in 2001 turned the actress into an international star. And now her depiction of pain and determination in A Very Long Engagement will only serve to enhance her widespread appeal.
It's the latest in a mixed string of roles - in 2002 she dropped the Amelie smile to depict a struggling Turkish woman in Dirty Pretty Things, a drama by British director Stephen Frears about immigrants in London.
It was the petite brunette's first English-language film and Frears elicited another fine performance from the Paris-based actress.
For Audrey, all this rush of attention means her life has changed. She may have resisted the siren call of Hollywood, and not from a lack of offers, but that hasn't dampened her celebrity appeal in her native land.
"In France they have a fanatical response to someone they view as a celebrity," she admits. "They don't keep a distance, they feel they own you in a way. They are not really aware you are a normal person."
The fascination people have for celebrities means she tries to keep a low profile in public.
"You do various tricks not to be exposed, but if people see you they will stare at you as if they were at home watching television."
Jeunet cast Audrey in Amelie after British star Emily Watson withdrew and now he admits the then relative unknown was the perfect choice. He saw her face on a poster for her first major film role in Venus Beauty Institute and that did it.
"She has the biggest eyes and those beautiful ears, exactly how I envisaged my Amelie. She's a gift from heaven," he declares. "I didn't have to direct her, I just let her do what came naturally."
That's why Audrey was his first choice to play the lame Mathilde in A Very Long Engagement, who goes in search of her reportedly dead fiance at the end of the First World War. Far more sombre in mood and landscape, this is a tribute to the boundless optimism of love in the face of dreadful reality, including the horrors of trench warfare.
After Mathilde's fiance tries to get out of combat, he is condemned to death by being left in No Man's Land between the French and German lines.
Not believing the news that he has perished, Mathilde leaves her Brittany home to find out what happened for herself.
"The part was quite challenging, for me Mathilde is a very suffering person and I had to find this suffering. I had to fill my body with tears," Audrey says.
Throughout the long film Audrey's Mathilde sports a leg brace and a look of quiet determination.
The inner strength of Mathilde appealed to Audrey. "I always play strong-minded characters. I think it's maybe because I'm like that. I love being by myself."
Including a cameo by Jodie Foster, the 50 million dollar film battles the tag that it's `Amelie Goes to War' with some very graphic scenes of violence to dampen the comical and love elements.
And it's exactly this kind of film Audrey loves - the actress has no plans to make her big Hollywood debut yet, instead her next role is in the French-made Les Poupees Russes (The Russian Dolls).
"I wouldn't mind being in an American film for a laugh," she admits, "but I certainly don't want to be in Thingy Blah Blah Three, if you know what I mean."
It's certainly not for lack of Hollywood asking.
"I've had a few opportunities, but it takes a lot of guts to do something big in English. I also believe there has to be some kind of correlation, a truth, between who I am and what I can play."
The whole notion of trying to enhance your celebrity profile doesn't appeal either.
"I never watch myself thinking, 'Oh you are so great, you will be in this paper and this paper and this paper'. Acting is ephemeral, there are some more important things in life."
Very private about her personal life, Audrey is engaged to writer Lance Mazmanian. The eldest of four children, she grew up in central France born to a dentist father and teacher mother.
She got the acting bug at 18, and studied theatre in Paris while being a Literature student.
"I never dared to say I wanted to become an actor, I thought it was like a teenage sickness. My parents only let me do theatre because I was already at university."
As a good science student who once wanted to study primates, she says she only gave herself a short time to make it in acting.
"It was a passion, of course, but I thought I would give myself one year, and if at the end I hadn't done what I wanted, I would do something else."
But her debut in 1999 in Venus Beauty Institute won her the Best New Actress award at the French equivalent of the Oscars, the Cesars, and landed her the role of Amelie via a poster.
Audrey is not surprised that Amelie became a worldwide phenomenon.
"People responded with their heart. The message that you can make things better for yourself and others.
It's almost a fairy tale and that's what appeals to people so much in these troubled times."
A Very Long Engagement opens on Friday January 21.
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