Isabelle Huppert has been a star for over 40 years, carving out a career of remarkable style and unusual daring. Born in a comfortable Parisian suburb, she made her acting debut as a teenager in the early 1970s, going on to work with the likes of Maurice Pialat, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Claire Denis, Mia Hansen-Løve, and Paul Verhoeven in France and Márta Mészáros, Aleksandar Petrović, Mauro Bolognini, and Hong Sang-soo abroad.
Now, at 71, she’s due to take on the prestigious role of jury president at the Venice Film Festival. Ahead of opening night, scroll on for some fabulous old photos of one of France’s greatest—and most enduring—talents.
Photo: Getty Images1/221971
In 1971, an 18-year-old Huppert made her television debut in Le Prussien. Her first three films came out the following year: Faustine et le Bel Été, The Bar at the Crossing, and César and Rosalie (with Yves Montand and Romy Schneider).
Photo: Getty Images2/221976
En plein air at Cannes.
Photo: Getty Images3/22c. 1977
With Agnès Varda at New York’s Studio 54.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection4/221978
As Pomme in Claude Goretta’s The Lacemaker, for which Huppert won the BAFTA for most promising newcomer in 1978. “I had done films before, but this was the film that defined me as a young actress, because it was so much about interiority,” Huppert told the New York Times in 2022. “It was a great role as a career starter—one of these roles that imprints itself on you.”
Photo: Getty Images5/221978
For her performance in Claude Chabrol’s Violette, Huppert shared the best-actress prize at Cannes with Jill Clayburgh, the star of Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman.
Photo: Getty Images6/22c. 1980
With Jean-Luc Godard—who directed her in 1980’s Every Man for Himself and 1982’s Passion—on a trip to New York City. “I wasn’t intimidated by Godard,” Huppert has said. “I was never intimidated by anyone, at least no directors. If you are intimidated, things become impossible. I was always confident.”
Photo: Getty Images7/22c. 1980
With Kris Kristofferson, her co-star in Michael Cimino’s once-maligned, now better appreciated Western Heaven’s Gate. “It always moves me,” Huppert said of the film in 2019. “Too few people saw it when it came out, and so it’s always a bit of an event when it’s screened. It’s like an unloved child who in the end is much loved.”
Photo: Getty Images8/22c. 1980
In a T-shirt, jeans, and loose curls in New York City.
Photo: Getty Images9/221983
Greeting designer Pierre Cardin at the Paris premiere of Entre Nous, directed by Diane Kurys.
- Patrice PICOT10/22
1984
At an event with Catherine Deneuve. In 2002, the two would appear together in François Ozon’s musical black comedy 8 Women.
Photo: Getty Images11/221985
Sporting a smartly cropped, brilliantly blonde hairdo at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.
Photo: Getty Images12/221986
Doing her best Bacall for a shoot in Los Angeles.
- Photo: Getty Images13/22
1988
In London for the BAFTA Awards.
Photo: Getty Images14/221988
With Claude Chabrol on the set of Story of Women, for which she won the Volpi Cup for best actress at the 1988 Venice Film Festival. “Given that [Chabrol] didn’t direct me at all and never told me what to do, there were certain scenes when I thought, ‘Whether I do it sad or happy, it won’t change anything’,” Huppert recalled of the film in 2019. “The small variations had little importance because a more global vision was at work.”
Photo: Getty Images15/221990
With Jacques Doillon—her director for 1990’s A Woman’s Revenge—in Berlin.
Photo: Getty Images16/22c. 1992
In Diane Kurys’s romantic drama After Love.
Photo: Getty Images17/221994
Alongside Jeanne Moreau, with whom Huppert appeared in the 1974 comedy Going Places and the 1982 drama The Trout.
STAFF18/221996
After seven previous nominations, Huppert claimed her first César Award for Chabrol’s 1995 crime drama La Cérémonie. (She’s now the most-nominated actor in Césars history, with 16 nods to her credit.)
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection19/222001
With Benoît Magimel in Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher, one of Huppert’s boldest—and most critically acclaimed—projects. “Like all great writers, he brings a certain irony to even the most tragic material,” Huppert has said of Haneke. “By nature, I’m the same—there’s nothing worse than a lack of humor.”
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection20/222009
“Having worked with such amazing directors, I just wanted to work with another amazing director,” Huppert said of Claire Denis—with whom she made the drama White Material—in 2010. “I’ve known Claire for years and I think we always wanted to work with each other. It was all very natural.”
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection21/222012
In Hong Sang-soo’s In Another Country. Huppert would re-team with the Korean director a few year later for Claire’s Camera (2017), co-starring Kim Min-hee.
Photo: Getty Images22/222012
Walking a sodden red carpet for the premiere of Michael Haneke’s Amour at Cannes, where the film won the Palme d’Or.
