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Actress Isabelle Huppert turns 70

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Isabelle Huppert has masterfully embodied a wide variety of characters in her films – and she is still drawn to the set. The French loves challenging roles and is one of the best actresses in the world.



She has acted in around 150 films and TV productions and effortlessly slips into a wide variety of characters. Although Isabelle Huppert was also seen in comedies, she became best known in the roles of self-confident, cold women – who don't always do what is expected of them.

In her long career she has acted for many of the great masters of cinema. Some critics have hailed her as “one of the best actresses in the world”. At the 72nd Berlin Film Festival in 2022, her performance was appropriately acknowledged: she received the Honorary Golden Bear for her life's work. Now she's 70 and still happily making films. Her latest film “Mon Crime”, a tragic comedy by filmmaker François Ozon, is currently showing in French cinemas. 

Growing up with the fine arts

Born on March 16, 1953 in Paris, Isabelle Huppert seems to have had success in her cradle: Her parents, the mother an English teacher and the father a Jewish entrepreneur, are well off. Isabelle and her four older siblings are brought up as Catholics, and the fine arts have a natural place in the Huppert household. Acting courses during high school and admission to the Paris Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique – all of this was somehow obvious given Isabelle's background. Still, she wouldn't claim to have been “lucky”. “Happiness doesn't just magically fall from the sky.” Rather, everyone can create the conditions for their own happiness, she said in a 2017 interview with the women's magazine “Brigitte”. />

Regular guest at film festivals: Isabelle Huppert 2022 in Rome

Isabelle Huppert: reputation as an intellectual actress 

At least she did and still does that all the time, one gets the impression. Isabelle Huppert is considered restless. For decades she has put in a considerable workload, shooting two to three films a year. In 2018, four appeared with her, including the psychological thriller “Eva” (Benoît Jacquot), which ran in competition at the 68th Berlinale, and in which Huppert, as a noble prostitute, drives a fraudulent writer into bondage and ultimately into catastrophe.

Isabelle Huppert has been a star for more than 50 years

Extraordinary women who are shaped by tragedy and are surrounded by mysteries – these are Huppert's prime roles. Their selection and collaboration with the most renowned directors in the world such as Michael Haneke (including “The Piano Player”)  or Claude Chabrol (including “Violette Nozière”) earned her a reputation as an “intellectual actress”. Wrongly, as she says, because her films – even if they could sometimes be described as intellectual – said nothing about her, Huppert told “Zeit Magazin”. She sees herself more as a “tool” of the director , follows his instructions exactly, hardly improvises.

Strong expression thanks to reduced facial expressions

She conveys the emotional states and mental constitution of her characters precisely and with a great deal of sensitivity: with her seemingly expressionless face and sparse facial expressions, which have always been Huppert's trademarks. Fiction has a tendency to inflate things, she explained in an interview with the Financial Times in July 2017. “But when I look at people on the street, I see that most of them have pretty blank stares. That means I have to do less.” Watching taught her to reduce instead of add.

Her disturbing play in Die Pianist” earned her a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001

But their reduced style of play meant that viewers and critics classified them as unapproachable and cool. An image that, on closer inspection, does not do justice to the 1.50 meter small French woman: She has been married to film director Ronald Chammah since 1982, and the couple has four children. Art and photography are among Huppert's passions. She piles photos and books in her home – “I want to capture the good memories in my life” – and gets anxious when she has to move into tight spaces. Pages that show that even Isabelle Huppert has her weaknesses.

Women on the fringes of society are given a voice

Huppert likes to play extreme characters, “survivors who can be victims and rebels at the same time,” says the actress. “Monsters with a human face. My films give these women a voice. Because even if they live on the fringes of our society, they are there: women who lead a brutal life. A brutality that they didn't choose themselves”, said Huppert to “Zeit Magazin”.

In “Elle” Huppert plays a woman who repeatedly being raped and dealing with it in a special way

Her interpretations of those challenging female roles have already brought the Frenchwoman numerous prizes, including the most important awards in the film industry: César, European Film Prize, Honorary Golden Bear, Palme d'Or and the Golden Globe – they are all at Huppert's home, sometimes several times. The only thing missing is the Oscar, for which she was nominated at least once in 2017 with “Elle” (by director Paul Verhoeven).

Confidently into the future 

She is self-confident and sure of herself. She has never doubted her ability. “I'm absolutely not afraid.” Things are different in other areas, she told the Financial Times. For example, when she crosses the street or meets people. “Whenever something is essential in life.” But nothing can scare her when she's acting. “I do it without thinking about it. It's like eating or drinking.”


This is the updated version of an article from 04/12/2018.

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