Isabelle Adjani is the only performer in history to win five Cesar Awards for acting; she won the Best Actress award for Possession, One Deadly Summer, Camille Claudel, La Reine Margot and Skirt Day.
27 Facts About Isabelle Adjani
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Isabelle Adjani was made a Knight of France's Legion of Honour in 2010 and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2014.
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Isabelle Adjani won the Best Actress award at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival for her performances in Possession and Quartet, and, later, she won the Best Actress award at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival for Camille Claudel.
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Isabelle Yasmina Adjani was born on 27 June 1955 in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, to Mohammed Cherif Adjani, an Algerian Kabyle from Constantine, and Emma Augusta "Gusti" Schweinberger, a German Catholic from Bavaria.
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Isabelle Adjani asked him to take Cherif as his first name as she thought it sounded more "American".
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Isabelle Adjani grew up bilingual, speaking French and German fluently, in Gennevilliers, a northwestern suburb of Paris, where her father worked in a garage.
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Isabelle Adjani successfully passed her baccalaureat and was auditing classes at the University of Vincennes in 1976.
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Isabelle Adjani had a younger brother, Eric, who was a photographer.
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At the age of 14, Isabelle Adjani starred in her first motion picture, Le Petit Bougnat.
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Isabelle Adjani first gained fame as a classical actress at the Comedie-Francaise, which she joined in 1972.
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Isabelle Adjani was praised for her interpretation of Agnes, the main female role in Moliere's L'Ecole des femmes.
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Isabelle Adjani soon left the theatre to pursue a film career.
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Isabelle Adjani immediately cast her in her first major role in his The Story of Adele H which he had finished writing five years prior.
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Only 19 when she made the film, Isabelle Adjani was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, becoming the youngest Best Actress nominee at the time.
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Isabelle Adjani quickly received offers for roles in Hollywood films, such as Walter Hill's 1978 crime thriller The Driver.
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Isabelle Adjani had previously turned down the chance to star in films like The Other Side of Midnight.
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Isabelle Adjani 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.
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That same year, Isabelle Adjani released the French pop album Pull marine, written and produced by Serge Gainsbourg.
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Isabelle Adjani starred in a music video for the hit title song, "Pull Marine", which was directed by Luc Besson.
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Isabelle Adjani received her third Cesar and second Oscar nomination for her role in the film, becoming the first French actress to receive two Oscar nominations.
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Isabelle Adjani received her fourth Cesar for the 1994 film Queen Margot, an ensemble epic directed by Patrice Chereau.
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Isabelle Adjani received her fifth Cesar for Skirt Day, the most that any actress has received.
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Isabelle Adjani embodied the commander Clara Damico, head of the brigade for the repression of banditry.
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In 1979, Isabelle Adjani had a son, Barnabe Said-Nuytten, with the cinematographer Bruno Nuytten, whom she later hired to direct her project Camille Claudel, a biopic of the sculptor who was the lover of Rodin.
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Isabelle Adjani was later engaged to the composer Jean-Michel Jarre; they broke up in 2004.
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Isabelle Adjani has been vocal against anti-immigrant and anti-Algerian sentiment in France.
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In 2017, Isabelle Adjani was interviewed by Vincent Josse on the French public radio station France Inter.