Isabelle Huppert

Isabelle Huppert
Huppert at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival
Born	(1953-03-16) 16 March 1953 Paris, France
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1971–present
Spouse(s)	Ronald Chammah (m. 1982)
Children	3

Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert (French pronunciation: ​; born 16 March 1953) is a French actress of stage and screen who has appeared in more than 100 film and television productions since her 1971 debut. She won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for The Lacemaker (1977) and the César Award for Best Actress for La Ceremonie (1995). She is the most nominated actress for the César Award, with 14 nominations. She was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1999 and was promoted to Officer in 2009.

Huppert's first César nomination was for the 1975 film Aloïse. She went on to win Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for Violette Nozière (1978) and The Piano Teacher (2001) and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for Story of Women (1988) and La Ceremonie (1995).^[1] Her other films include Loulou (1980), La Séparation (1994), 8 Women (2002), Gabrielle (2005) and Amour (2012). Her English-language films include Heaven's Gate (1980), I Heart Huckabees (2004) and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2013). A five-time Molière Award nominee in France, she made her London stage debut in the title role of the play Mary Stuart in 1996, and her New York stage debut in a 2005 production of 4.48 Psychosis. She returned to the New York stage in 2014, to star opposite Cate Blanchett in a Sydney Theatre Company production of The Maids.

Early life and career

Huppert was born in Paris, the daughter of Annick Beau, a teacher of English, and Raymond Huppert, a safe manufacturer. Her father was born Jewish and converted to Catholicism; he was descended from immigrants from Hungary.^[2] She was raised in a western suburb of Ville-d'Avray. Huppert was encouraged by her mother to begin acting at a young age, and became a teenage star in Paris. She later attended Versailles Conservatoire, where she won a prize for her acting. She is also an alumna of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Paris, CNSAD.^[3]

Huppert made her film debut in 1972 with Faustine et le bel été, though her television debut was in 1971. Her later appearance in the controversial Les Valseuses (1974) made her increasingly recognized by the public. Her international breakthrough came with La Dentelliere (1977),^[4] for which she won a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles. She made her American film debut in Michael Cimino's 1980 film Heaven's Gate, which was a notorious flop at the U.S. box office. Throughout the 1980s, Huppert continued to explore enigmatic and emotionally distant characters, most notably in Maurice Pialat's Loulou (1980), Godard's Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980), Diane Kurys' Coup de foudre (1983), and Claude Chabrol's Une Affaire de Femmes (1988).

Later career and recent credits

Huppert at the Cannes Film Festival (1990s)

Huppert played a manic and homicidal post-office worker in Dustin Hoffman in David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees.

Huppert is also an acclaimed stage actress, receiving five Molière Award nominations, including for the title role in a 2001 Paris production of Medea, directed by Jacques Lassalle, and at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris, in the title role of a 2005 production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.^[5] Later that year, she toured the United States in a Royal Court Theatre production of Sarah Kane's theatrical piece 4.48 Psychosis. This production was directed by Claude Régy and performed in French.^[6]

Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, from 13 May to 24 May 2009.^[1] She has been Member of the Jury and Master of Ceremony in previous years, as well as winning the Best Actress Award twice. As president, she gave the Palme d'Or to The White Ribbon by the Austrian director Michael Haneke^[7] who has directed her in The Piano Teacher and Time of the Wolf.^[8]

Huppert starred in the 11th season finale of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which aired on 19 May 2010.

In September 2010, the Philippine Daily Inquirer announced that she had been cast in the film Captive by award-winning Filipino director Brillante Mendoza. Huppert played the role of a kidnap victim in the hands of the separatist group, Abu Sayyaf.^[9]

In 2012, she starred in two films that competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival; Amour and In Another Country.^[10][11]

In 2013, she co-starred in Sydney Theatre Company's The Maids by Jean Genet, with Cate Blanchett and Elizabeth Debicki and directed by Benedict Andrews in a new English translation by Andrews and Andrew Upton. Then in summer of 2014, the production toured in New York as a part of the Lincoln Center Festival 2014, in New York City Center for 13 performances.^[12][13]

Awards

Huppert poses with Special Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic contribution to the world cinema at 44th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

She has been nominated fourteen times for a César Award, winning it in 1996 for her work in La Cérémonie.

She is one of only four women who have twice won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival: in 1978 for her role in Violette Nozière by Claude Chabrol (tied with Jill Clayburgh) and in 2001 for The Piano Teacher by Michael Haneke.

She is also one of only two women who have twice received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival: in 1988 for her part in Une affaire de femmes (tied with Shirley MacLaine), and in 1995 for La Cérémonie (tied with her partner in the movie, Sandrine Bonnaire). Both films were directed by Claude Chabrol. Additionally, she received a Special Lion in 2005 for her role in Gabrielle.

Huppert was twice voted Best Actress at the European Film Awards: in 2001 for playing Erika Kohut in The Piano Teacher, and in 2002 with the entire cast of 8 Women (directed by François Ozon). The latter cast also won a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (Halle Berry won Best Actress at Berlin in 2002).^[14] She won the Best Actress award at the Montreal World Film Festival (in 2002 for Merci pour le chocolat), at the Moscow International Film Festival (in 1991 for Madame Bovary), at the Deutscher Filmpreis (in 1991 for Malina) and twice at the David di Donatello (in 1978 for La Dentellière and in 2001 for The Piano Teacher).

In 2008 she received the Stanislavsky Award for outstanding achievement in acting, and devotion to the principles of the Stanislavsky method.

She was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre national du Mérite on 8 December 1994^[15] and was promoted to Officier (Officer) in 2005.^[15]

She was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur on 29 September 1999^[16] and was promoted to Officier (Officer) in 2009.^[16]

César Awards

BAFTA Film Awards

Film festivals

Molière Awards

Other

Honorary awards

• 2006: Ibsen Centennial Commemoration Award
• 2008: 30th Moscow International Film Festival Stanislavsky Award^[19]
• 2009: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Crystal Globe for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema
• 2013: Manaki Brothers Film Festival Special Golden Camera 300
• 2014: Munich Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award

Reviews

David Thomson on Claude Chabrol's Madame Bovary: "[Huppert] has to rate as one of the most accomplished actresses in the world today, even if she seems short of the passion or agony of her contemporary, Isabelle Adjani". Stuart Jeffries of The Observer on The Piano Teacher: "This is surely one of the greatest performances of Huppert's already illustrious acting career, though it is one that is very hard to watch." Director, Michael Haneke: "[Huppert] has such professionalism, the way she is able to represent suffering. At one end you have the extreme of her suffering and then you have her icy intellectualism. No other actor can combine the two."^[20] Of her performance in 2011's Hidden Love, Roger Ebert said "Isabelle Huppert makes one good film after another.... she is fearless. Directors often depend on her gift for conveying depression, compulsion, egotism and despair. She can be funny and charming, but then so can a lot of actors. She is in complete command of a face that regards the void with blankness."^[21] In 2010, S.T. VanAirsdale described her as "arguably the world’s greatest screen actress".^[22]

Filmography

Discography

• Madame Deshoulières (2001) with Jean-Louis Murat.^[23]

Personal life

Huppert has been married to writer, producer and director Ronald Chammah since 1982. They have three children including the actress Lolita Chammah with whom she acted in the film Copacabana.^[24][25]

References

External links

• Isabelle Huppert at the Internet Movie Database
• Isabelle Huppert at AllMovie
• Isabelle Huppert at filmsdefrance.com