Early life and education

Adjani was born in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, to a German Catholic mother from Bavaria and an Algerian Kabyle father from Iferhounène, Kabylie. Adjani's mother, Emma Augusta Schweinberger (died February 2007), called "Gusti", met Adjani's father, Mohammed Adjani, near the end of World War II, when he was in the French Army. They married and she returned with him to Paris, not speaking a word of French.

Her mother asked her father to take Cherif as his first name as it sounded more "American". Mohammed Cherif Adjani had been a soldier in the French Army from the age of 16 in World War II. Isabelle grew up bilingual, speaking French and German fluently, in Gennevilliers, a northwestern suburb of Paris, where her father worked in a garage. She said her parents used their ethnic and cultural differences against each other in arguments. After winning a school recitation contest, Adjani began acting by the age of twelve in amateur theater. She successfully passed her baccalauréat and was auditing classes at the University of Vincennes in 1976.

Career

At the age of 14, Adjani starred in her first motion picture, Le Petit bougnat (1970). She first gained fame as a classical actress at the Comédie française, which she joined in 1972. She was praised for her interpretation of Agnès, the main female role in Molière's L'École des femmes. She soon left the theatre to pursue a film career.

After minor roles in several films, she enjoyed modest success in the 1974 film La Gifle (The Slap), which François Truffaut saw. He immediately cast her in her first major role in his The Story of Adèle H. (1975) which he had finished writing five years prior. Critics praised her performance, with the American critic Pauline Kael describing her acting talents as "prodigious". Only 19 when she made the film, Adjani was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, making her the youngest best actress nominee at the time. She quickly received offers for roles in Hollywood films, such as Walter Hill's 1978 crime thriller The Driver. She had previously turned down the chance to star in films like The Other Side of Midnight. She had described Hollywood as a "city of fiction" and said, "I'm not an American. I didn't grow up with that will to win an award." Truffaut on the other hand said, "France is too small for her. I think Isabelle is made for American cinema." She agreed to make The Driver because she was an admirer of Hill's first film Hard Times. Adjani said:

I think he is wonderful, very much in the tradition of Howard Hawks, lean and spare. The story is contemporary but also very stylized, and the roles that Ryan and I play are like Bogart and Bacall. We are both gamblers in our souls and we do not show our emotions or say a lot. For us, talk is cheap. I am really quite a mysterious girl in this film, with no name and no background. And I must say that it is restful not to have a life behind me; this way, I don't have to dig deep to play the part. All I know is that life for me is gambling and I am a loser. I have what people call a poker face.

The film was seen more than 1.1 million times in Adjani's native France but did not do as well in the US.

She played Lucy in the German director Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of Nosferatu which was well-received critically and performed well at box offices in Europe. Roger Ebert loved the film, calling Herzog's casting of Adjani one of his "masterstrokes" in the film. He wrote that she "is used here not only for her facial perfection but for her curious quality of seeming to exist on an ethereal plane." The cast and the crew filmed both English- and German-language versions simultaneously upon request of 20th Century Fox, the American distributor. as Kinski and Ganz could act more confidently in their native language.

In 1981, she received a double Cannes Film Festival's Best Actress award for her roles in the Merchant Ivory film Quartet, based on the novel by Jean Rhys, and in the horror film Possession (1981). The following year, she received her first César Award for Possession, in which she had portrayed a woman having a nervous breakdown. In 1983, she won her second César for her depiction of a vengeful woman in the French blockbuster One Deadly Summer.

That same year, Adjani released the French pop album Pull marine, written and produced by Serge Gainsbourg. She starred in a music video for the hit title song, "Pull Marine", which was directed by Luc Besson.

In 1988, she co-produced and starred in a biopic of the sculptor Camille Claudel. She received her third César and second Oscar nomination for her role in the film, becoming the first French actress to receive two Oscar nominations. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Following this recognition, she was chosen by People magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in the world.

She received her fourth César for the 1994 film Queen Margot, an ensemble epic directed by Patrice Chéreau. She received her fifth César for Skirt Day (2009), the most that any actress has received. The film features her as a middle school teacher in a troubled French suburb who takes her class hostage when she accidentally fires off a gun she found on one of her students. It was premiered on the French Arte channel on 20 March 2009, attaining a record 2.2 million viewers) and then in movie theaters on 25 March 2009.

In 2011, Adjani was named "The Most Beautiful Woman in Film" by the Los Angeles Times magazine.

Views

She has been vocal against anti-immigrant and anti-Algerian feeling in France.

In 2009, Adjani criticized statements by Pope Benedict XVI claiming that condoms are not an effective method of AIDS prevention.

Personal life

In 1979, she had a son, Barnabe Nuytten, with the cinematographer Bruno Nuytten, whom she later hired to direct her project Camille Claudel, a biopic of the sculptor who was best known as the lover of Rodin. From 1989 to 1995, she had a relationship with Daniel Day-Lewis, who left before the birth of their son, Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, in 1995. Day-Lewis, who goes by the name of Gabe Day as of 2013, is an aspiring hip-hop artist.

Adjani was later engaged to the composer Jean Michel Jarre; they broke up in 2004.

Honors

In addition to specific awards for particular films, Adjani was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur on 14 July 2010 for her artistic contributions.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Director	Notes	Rotten Tomatoes
1970	Le Petit bougnat	Rose	Bernard Toublanc-Michel
1972	Faustine et le bel été	Camille	Nina Companeez
1973	L'école des femmes	Agnès	Raymond Rouleau	TV Movie Produced by the Comédie-Française
1974	L'avare	Mariane	René Lucot	TV Movie Produced by the Comédie-Française
	Le secret des Flamands	Maria	Robert Valey	TV Movie
	La Gifle (fr)	Isabelle Doulean	Claude Pinoteau	Special David di Donatello
	Ariane	Ariane	Pierre-Jean de San Bartolomé
1975	Story of Adèle H., TheThe Story of Adèle H.	Adèle Hugo	François Truffaut	Cartagena Film Festival Golden India Catalina for Best Actress David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Actress National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated—César Award for Best Actress	93%
	Ondine	Ondine	Raymond Rouleau	TV Movie
1976	Tenant, TheThe Tenant	Stella	Roman Polanski		90%
	Barocco	Laure	André Téchiné	Nominated—César Award for Best Actress
1977	Violette et François (fr)	Violette Clot	Jacques Rouffio
1978	Driver, TheThe Driver	The Player	Walter Hill		86%
1979	Nosferatu the Vampyre	Lucy Harker	Werner Herzog	Bambi Award for Best Actress	95%
	Brontë Sisters, TheThe Brontë Sisters	Emily Brontë	André Téchiné
1981	Clara et les Chics Types	Clara	Jacques Monnet
	Possession	Anna/Helen	Andrzej Żuławski	Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award César Award for Best Actress	81%
	Quartet	Marya Zelli	James Ivory	Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award
	L'Année prochaine... si tout va bien (fr)	Isabelle Maréchal	Jean-Loup Hubert
1982	Tout feu, tout flamme (fr)	Pauline Valance	Jean-Paul Rappeneau
	The Last Horror Film	Herself	David Winters
	Antonieta	Antonieta Rivas Mercado	Carlos Saura
1983	Mortelle randonnée	Catherine Leiris/Lucie, 'Marie'	Claude Miller
	One Deadly Summer	Eliane known as 'Elle'	Jean Becker	César Award for Best Actress
1984	Pull marine		Luc Besson
1985	Subway	Héléna	Luc Besson	Nominated—César Award for Best Actress	86%
1986	T'as de beaux escaliers tu sais	Isabelle	Agnès Varda	Short
1987	Ishtar	Shirra Assel	Elaine May		26%
1988	Camille Claudel	Camille Claudel	Bruno Nuytten	César Award for Best Actress Silver Bear for Best Actress at Berlin Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress	100%
1990	Lung Ta: Les cavaliers du vent	Narrator	Marie-Jaoul de Poncheville Franz-Christoph Giercke
1993	Toxic Affair	Pénélope	Philomène Esposito
1994	Queen Margot	Margot	Patrice Chéreau	César Award for Best Actress	75%
1996	Diabolique	Mia Baran	Jeremiah S. Chechik		12%
1998	Paparazzi	Herself	Alain Berbérian
1999	Bonne Nuit	Yvette
2002	Repentie, LaLa Repentie	Charlotte/Leïla	Laetitia Masson
	Adolphe	Ellénore	Benoît Jacquot	Cabourg Romantic Film Festival Award for Best Actress
2003	Bon voyage	Viviane Denvers	Jean-Paul Rappeneau		76%
	Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran	The Star	François Dupeyron		85%
2008	Figaro	Countess Almaviva	Jacques Weber
	journée de la jupe, LaLa journée de la jupe	Sonia Bergerac	Jean-Paul Lilienfeld	César Award for Best Actress Lumières Award for Best Actress Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actress Television Festival Award for Best Actress
2010	Mammuth	The Lost Love of Serge	Gustave de Kervern Benoît Delépine	Entered into the 60th Berlin International Film Festival	63%
2011	Aïcha	Doctor Assoussa	Yamina Benguigui	TV Series (1 Episode : "Job à tout prix")
	De Force	Clara Damico	Frank Henry
2012	David et Madame Hansen	Madame Hansen-Bergmann	Alexandre Astier
2013	Ishkq in Paris	Marie Elise	Prem Raj	Bollywood movie
2014	Sous les jupes des filles	Lili	Audrey Dana

Theater

• 2014-2015 : Kinship written by Carey Perloff, directed by Dominique Borg, théâtre de Paris

Discography

• Pull marine (1983; produced and written by Serge Gainsbourg)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]