Emilie Dequenne, a Belgian actress, passed away at the age of 43 from a rare malignancy, according to her agent and family.

The award-winning actress, who played police woman Laurence Relaud in the BBC drama The Missing, died on Sunday in a hospital outside of Paris.

In October 2023, she disclosed that she had adrenocortical carcinoma, an adrenal gland cancer.

Dequenne announced the good news of her full remission in April 2024, stating that she was determined to resume her job and her normal life.

“I was close to forgetting because I was leaving the hospital today after 13 days… What a tough battle,” she wrote on social media.

However, at the end of last year, she experienced a resurgence of her condition, which regrettably caused her health to deteriorate.

She openly recognized her worsening health on December 1 when she told the French television program TF1 that she was concentrating on her well-being.

“I know I will not live as long as planned,” she said.

Her career began with her breakthrough performance in the Dardenne brothers’ “Rosetta,” which won both the Golden Palm and Best Actress at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.

She then made a name for herself in several settings with Claude Berri’s A Housekeeper (2002), Catherine Corsini’s The Very Merry Widows (2003), and Christophe Gans’ Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001).

Dequenne also won numerous other accolades for her roles in mostly French-language films, such as the drama “Our Children” (2012) and the 2009 film “The Girl on the Train.”

She saw Franck Richard’s The Pack, a Special Screening at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of her victory there with the Dardenne brothers and to promote the English-language disaster film “Survive,” which was released the same year, she later made a comeback to the Cannes film festival in 2024.

Dequenne claimed in an interview with The Action that she was unaware of her illness at the time of the filming.

It was the final movie she starred in before her sickness caused her to quit.

Dequenne added that the film, a dystopian drama focused on a family, appealed to her because of her personal experiences as a mother.

“I can’t explain, but when you became a mother, it’s like your strength and your power and your braveness entirely changed. And you see life through another vision,” she said.

“And that’s what completely attracted me when I read the script, is that for me, it was really realistic, actually, although, of course, it’s dystopic and I love that.” 

For the kids who also starred in the film, the crew created a kind of family atmosphere, she continued.

“We had dinner together. When we came back, we were in the same car to go to the set. We were together, always together. And I still got them on the phone. Lisa, who plays my daughter, she’s become a very good friend to my daughter. Occasionally she comes home, she sleeps over, and we spend time together,” Dequenne explained.

On August 29, 1981, Émilie Dequenne was born in Belgium.

Her daughter and husband, Michel Ferracci, survive her.