A luminous brunette with porcelain skin and expressive blue eyes, Isabelle Adjani brings a mixture of fragility and fierceness to her screen portrayals. One of France's leading actresses, she first earned critical praise as a member of the Comedie Francaise, which she joined at age 17. Adjani had already made two features, her debut "Le Petit bougnat" (1969) and "Faustine et le bel ete" (1971), and a TV-movie before she made her stage debut in 1972. Adjani stunned many when she refused a 20-year commitment with the Comedie Francaise in order to pursue a film career. She had garnered praise for her performance as a spoiled teenager in "La Gifle/The Slap" (1974) and went on to earn international stardom as Victor Hugo's love-obsessed daughter in Francois Truffaut's "The Story of Adele H." (1975). That film earned her a number of awards and her first Oscar nomination as Best Actress. It also laid the groundwork for what has become Adjani's signature role in films: the intense, unstable, infatuated female.
Adjani subsequently appeared in films by noted international directors. For Andre Techine, she co-starred with Gerard Depardieu in "Barocco" (1976), as the instigator of a plot to blackmail a politician, and "The Bronte Sisters" (1978), as Emily Bronte. In Roman Polanski's "The Tenant" (1976), Adjani was the suicidal former occupant of the apartment rented by a confused man (played by Polanski). She brought a passivity to her role as Lucy, victim of Klaus Kinski's "Nosferatu" (1979) in Werner Herzog's retelling of the Dracula legend. Named Best Actress at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, Adjani was cited for two roles: as the unfaithful wife of Sam Neill struggling with demons in "Possession" and as the impoverished mistress of Alan Bates in James Ivory's "Quartet". Carlos Saura cast her as a melodramatic patron of the arts in "Antonieta" (also 1981).
Teaming (as producer and star) with former companion and first-time director Bruno Nuytten, Adjani had one of her best screen roles portraying sculptor "Camille Claudel" (1988), the mistress of August Rodin (Gerard Depardieu). As she had done over a decade earlier as Adele Hugo, the actress fully conveyed the passion and spirit of a strong-willed woman who descends into madness. Adjani earned her second Best Actress Oscar nomination. In a similar vein, she portrayed "Queen Margot/La Reine Margot" (1994). Based on Victor Hugo's novel, Patrice Chereau's film provided the actress with another in her galaxy of fragile women surrounded by violence.
Adjani has fared less well in her American features. She was virtually wasted in Walter Hill's "The Driver" (1978) as a gambler hired to provide the title character (Ryan O'Neal) with an alibi. In Elaine May's "Ishtar" (1987), Adjani was, in her words, "very, very, very veiled" as a rebel out to overthrow the government of the title country. Teamed with Sharon Stone for a remake of "Diabolique" (1996), Adjani again seemed out of her element as the meek, sickly wife of a belligerent school headmaster (Chazz Palminteri).