Isabelle Adjani

Isabelle Yasmine Adjani is a French performer and musician known for playing complex, emotionally intense, and tragic roles, particularly within psychological cinema. Throughout her career, she has garnered numerous accolades, including a record five César Awards for Best Actress, a Lumière Award, a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award, and two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In recognition of her artistic contributions, she was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 2010 and a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2014.

Born on 27 June 1955 in Paris, France, Adjani was raised in the suburb of Gennevilliers by her Algerian father, a garage worker, and her German mother. Raised bilingual in French and German, she began acting in local amateur theater at age 12 after winning a school recitation competition. She successfully completed her baccalauréat and audited classes at the University of Vincennes in 1976. Her younger brother, Éric, worked as a photographer until his death in 2010.

Adjani made her feature film debut at age 14 in Le Petit Bougnat (1970) before gaining acclaim as a classical stage actress with the Comédie-Française starting in 1972, notably starring in Molière's L'École des femmes. She soon transitioned to screen acting, achieving early success in La Gifle (1974). Director François Truffaut subsequently cast her in the lead role of The Story of Adèle H. (1975). Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress at age 20, making her the youngest nominee in that category at the time and establishing her international prominence.

Following her breakthrough, Adjani starred in the American crime film The Driver (1978) and Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). In 1981, she achieved the unique distinction of winning the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award for two separate films in the same competition, Quartet and Possession. Her work in Possession earned her a first César Award. She secured further Césars for her starring roles in the blockbuster One Deadly Summer (1983) and the biographical drama Camille Claudel (1988), which she also co-produced. The latter yielded her a second Academy Award nomination, making her the first French actress with two Oscar nominations for foreign-language films. Alongside acting, she expanded into music, releasing the pop album Pull marine in 1983.

Adjani earned her fourth César Award for the historical drama Queen Margot (1994). Following an eight-year hiatus from cinema, she returned to win a historic fifth César Award for Skirt Day (2009). Her subsequent screen projects include Mammuth (2010), Ishkq in Paris (2013), French Women (2014), The World Is Yours (2018), and Peter von Kant (2022). In 2023, she released her second pop album, Bande originale, and appeared in the action feature Wingwomen as well as the miniseries The Perfect Couple.

In her personal life, Adjani has two sons: one with cinematographer Bruno Nuytten and another with actor Daniel Day-Lewis. She was also previously in relationships with Warren Beatty and composer Jean-Michel Jarre. Outside her creative work, she has publicly opposed anti-immigrant sentiments in France and expressed her views on environmental and social issues. In December 2023, she received a two-year suspended sentence for tax fraud.