Famous for immersing herself in challenging roles, the French actor plays a war photographer in her latest film Louder Than Bombs. She talks about her commitment to directors, acting with Gerard Depardieu and playing a woman who stalks her rapist Isabelle Huppert strides into the salon, full of pep and vinegar, as you would expect. “Right now, I am completely immersed in theatre,” she says, not especially apologetically. “That’s why I might sound a little asleep at times.” It’s true: she is midway through a two-month Paris run of Phaedra(s), the classical Greek tragedy as reinterpreted by Sarah “Blasted” Kane, Wajdi Mouawad and JM Coetzee. “It is a very demanding production,” she says, and you wouldn’t want to doubt her. But she doesn’t sound in the remotest bit asleep. One of Huppert’s principal attributes, and one that has served her brilliantly as an actor over the decades, is her wide-awake steeliness and resolution beneath the unassuming exterior, the toughness and wariness of someone who is not going to be messed with. Now 63, she has been making films for more than 40 years, ever since bagging a small role in the 1972 teen comedy Faustine et le Bel Été. (She didn’t play Faustine, but the cast also included future heavy-hitters Isabelle Adjani and Nathalie Baye.) She’s now completed more than 100 films, a decent percentage of which are masterpieces. What’s her secret and why does she keep going? Has she ever thought of packing it in? Continue reading...
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