Isabelle Huppert (born March 16, 1955) is a French actress. She was born in Paris and was encouraged by her mother to begin acting at a young age. Huppert later attended the Conservatory of Versailles where she won a prize for her acting. After a successful stage career, she began making movies, debuting in 1972 with Faustine et le bel été (She had made a television debut the year before). She was a teenage star in Paris and made her American debut in the Michael Cimino's 1980 film Heaven's Gate, which flopped at the U.S. box office.
In Europe and the art house world, she is venerated as an institution by herself. She was nominated several times for a César Award, the French equivalent of the Oscars, winning it in 1995 for her intense portrayal of a manic and homicidal post-office worker in Claude Chabrol's sublime La Ceremonie, alongside Sandrine Bonnaire.
Her most recent awards are for Michael Haneke's La Pianiste where she played the role of a teacher suffering for her painful obsession for one of her students, while her sanity gradually unravelled and her world of musical fantasy caved in.
She most recently appeared on the Paris stage as Henrik Ibsen's suicidal Hedda Gabler. Every performance was greeted with a standing ovation. She recently turned fifty and remains one of Europe's most sublime exports.
Alum of Europe's most prestigious National Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Paris, CNSAD.
I ♥ Huckabees (2004)
