Isabelle Yasmine Adjani (born June 27, 1955 in Paris) is a French actress and singer of Algerian and German descent.
One of French cinema's most famous actresses since The '70s, she started the trade at 14, joined the Comédie-Française stage troupe at 17 and became famous at 20 when she played the main character in the François Truffaut film The Story of Adèle H, which earned her her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which made her, at 20, the youngest nominee in that category at the time. Her second Best Actress nomination came with the biopic Camille Claudel about Auguste Rodin's eponymous lover, making her the first French actress to receive two Academy Award nominations for foreign-language films. She won the Cannes Film Festival Award for her performances in Possession and Quartet, becoming the only actress to win for two films in the same competition slate.
She's had many high profile love affairs over the years, including with the likes of André Dussollier, Warren Beatty, Daniel Day-Lewis and Jean-Michel Jarre. She has two sons, one from her relationship with director Bruno Nuytten, Barnabé Nuytten, and another, Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, from the one she had with Daniel Day-Lewis.
Selected filmography:
Film:
- The Conformist (1970) as an extra in the dance hall scene
- The Story of Adèle H (1975) as Adèle Hugo
- The Tenant (1976) as Stella
- The Driver (1978) as The Player
- Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) as Lucy Harker
- Possession (1981) as Anna / Helen
- L'Été meurtrier (1983) as Eliane Wieck
- Deadly Circuit (1983) as Catherine Leiris
- Ishtar (1987) as Shirra Assel
- Camille Claudel (1988) as Camille Claudel
- La Reine Margot (1994) as Marguerite de Valois
- Diabolique (1996) as Mia Baran
- Bon Voyage (2003) as Viviane Denvers
Television:
- Dix pour cent (2017) as herself
Voice/French dub roles:
