Why Assane Diop From Netflix's Lupin Looks So Familiar

If you're a fan of 20th century French literature, then chances are good the name "Arsène Lupin" is familiar to you. He's a fictitious master of disguise, and a cunning thief, who was created by author Maurice Leblanc. Think of him as the anti-Sherlock Holmes, in that he made it his mission to manifest crimes rather than solve them. Fast forward over 100 years later, and the gentleman thief is still inspiring a new generation of creatives around the globe. This can be seen in the long-running manga and anime Lupin the Third, which recently came out with the feature-length anime film, Lupin III: The First. 

The character also plays a pivotal role in the newest Netflix series to take streamers by storm: the appropriately-titled Lupin.

Arsène Lupin is not the main character of the French Netflix series, though: that distinction goes to Assane Diop, played by French actor Omar Sy, who is inspired by Lupin's bibliography. He takes some cues from the master thief in order to get vengeance on the wealthy Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre) who orchestrated the death of Assane's father. While only Part 1 of the series is available to watch on Netflix now, it's clear that this is a role that Omar Sy could continue to sink his teeth into for many more stories to come, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Sy's work. He's been acting for a couple of decades now, and has had some high-profile roles you may recognize him from. 

Omar Sy acted in numerous French projects for the early portion of his career, including the award-winning 2011 film The Intouchables, but the place where most Americans were probably first introduced to him was in X-Men: Days of Future Past. He played the mutant hero known as Bishop, one of the most powerful X-Men in the comics, who has the power of energy resorption. He can then redirect the energy into a concussive blast to use against his opponents, which proves to be quite useful in taking down Sentinels ... for a period of time. 

In the movie, Bishop is seen during the dystopian future timeline, as he tries to protect mutantkind alongside his fellow X-Men, including Kitty Pryde (Elliot Page), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), Sunspot (Adan Canto), Blink (Bingbing Fan), and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore). Here, we get a glimpse into how Kitty's powers have evolved since X-Men: The Last Stand, when she manages to send Bishop's consciousness back to the past, back before the movie's opening sequence, allowing Bishop to change the future in such a way that the team makes it out alive. 

Later, when Kitty sends Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to his body in the 1970s to stop the Sentinels from ever taking over, Bishop is there to defend his comrades from a Sentinel attack — in the process, ultimately absorbing far more power than he's capable of containing. He spontaneously combusts. Luckily, the time traveling plan manages to succeed, creating a timeline where the Sentinels are never mass-produced, and the X-Men are alive. 

While this was Omar Sy's first foray into blockbuster territory, it wouldn't be his last. 

Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) may have gotten the lion's share of recognition for training Blue and the rest of the velociraptors in Jurassic World, but he wouldn't have accomplished a fraction of much if it wasn't for his good friend Barry Sembène, played by Omar Sy. 

Barry shares a special bond with the raptors, and when they get the idea to use the raptors to take down the Indominus Rex wreaking havoc on the island, Barry goes out with Owen to lead them in the right direction. Barry ends up with the most foreboding line in the entire film, which occurs in a moment where the raptors stop in their tracks when they could fight the Indominus Rex: It's at this point he realizes, "Something's wrong. They're communicating." The team recognizes the Indominus Rex was partly designed with raptor DNA, allowing it to tell Blue and the gang to attack the humans, instead of it. Blue ends up chasing Barry, who finds refuge in a log. It would've been a very different story for Barry if Owen hadn't come along to distract Blue long enough for him to get away. 

As is the case with most characters in the Jurassic Park movies, one encounter with dinos just isn't enough. Barry will return for Jurassic World: Dominion, which is set to be released in 2022. 

There's a decent chance that the last film you were able to see in a theater, in 2020, starred Omar Sy. Before the COVID-19 pandemic shut movie theaters down (along with numerous other businesses), families went to the cineplex to see the latest big screen adaptation of the classic novel, The Call of the Wild, starring Sy, Harrison Ford, Karen Gillan, and Dan Stevens. 

The film follows the harrowing journey of a large St. Bernard/Scotch Collie by the name of Buck, who's kidnapped from his home in California and ends up with various masters throughout his life. His second master is a Frenchman — Perrault, played by Sy — who relies on Buck to help him with his mail route, but when the telegraph comes around, Perrault doesn't have as much of a need for his dogs anymore and decides to sell them. 

One thing is for sure: Omar Sy is an immensely talented actor, who is just getting warmed up.