Isabelle Huppert reads Maupassant  

Isabelle Huppert has firmly established herself as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Collaborating with acclaimed directors across both stage and screen, she has garnered numerous awards, solidifying her reputation in the worlds of cinema and theater. Huppert studied Russian at the Langues O’ (French Oriental Language School) while being trained in drama at the Rue Blanche School and the French National Conservatory of Dramatic Art, where she was a student of Jean-Laurent Cochet and Antoine Vitez. She stood out straight from her very first movie role, with her part in Bertrand Blier’s Les Valseuses (Going Places), followed by Aloïse by Liliane de Kermadee and Bertrand Tavernier’s The Judge and the Assassin.

Huppert has gone on to work with such French cinematic greats as Jean-Luc Godard, André Téchiné, Maurice Pialat, Patrice Chéreau, Michael Haneke, Raúl Ruiz, Benoît Jacquot, Jacques Doillon, Claire Denis, Christian Vincent, Laurence Ferreira Barbosa, Olivier Assayas, François Ozon, Anne Fontaine, Eva Ionesco, Joachim Lafosse, Serge Bozon, Catherine Breillat, Guillaume Nicloux and Samuel Benchetrit. Huppert has also worked with many international film directors such as Michael Cimino, Joseph Losey, Otto Preminger, the Taviani Brothers, Marco Ferreri, Hal Hartley, David O. Russell, Werner Schroeter and Andrzej Wajda – but also with Rithy Panh, Brillante Mendoza, Joachim Trier and Hong Sang-Soo. Huppert has received the Best Actress award from the Cannes Film Festival twice for her roles in Violette Nozière (1978) and The Piano Teacher (2001). The Venice Film Festival awarded Huppert the Volpi Cup for Best Actress twice for playing Marie-Louise Giraud in Story of Women (1988), and a postmistress in the thriller La Cérémonie (1995). She has earned several of the top U.S. awards including the Golden Globe Award and the Spirit Award for Elle (2016), a film for which she was nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards and for which she won the César Award.

In addition to her career in film, Huppert has worked extensively on stage, both in France and internationally. She worked under Robert Wilson’s direction (Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Quartett by Heiner Möller), Peter Zadek (Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare), and Claude Régy (4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane, Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher by Paul Claudel). Huppert has appeared in other notable stage performances including: Euripides, staged by Jacques Lassalle, notably at the Avignon Festival; Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, staged by Éric Lacascade; Un Tramway, staged by Krzysztof Warlikowski at the Théâtre de l’Odéon and during a European and international tour; The Maids (Les Bonnes) by Jean Genet, staged by Benedict Andrews with Cate Blanchett at the Sydney Theatre Company and during the Lincoln Center Festival at New York City Center; and Les Fausses Confidences by Marivaux, staged by Luc Bondy at the Odéon – Théâtre de L’Europe as well as during a European tour. She has played Phaedra by Wajdi Mouawad, Sarah Kane and J.M. Coetzee, staged by Krzysztof Warlikowski at the Odéon – Théâtre de L’Europe and on a European and international tour. Isabelle Huppert is an Officer of the National Order of the Légion d’Honneur, Officer of the National Order of Merit, and Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, among the highest civilian honors awarded by the French government.