ISABELLE HUPPERT

In 1973, she was cast as Romy Schneider's younger sister in Claude Sautet's "Caesar and Rosalie." The following year she made an impressive and hilarious appearance in the final scenes of Bertrand Blier's epoch-making "Going Places," co-starring Gerard Depardieu. By 1975, Huppert had starred in such disparate films as "Serieux Comme Le Plaisir," "The Rape of Innocence," "No Time for Breakfast," "Rosebud" and "The Judge and the Assassin."

By the mid-1970s, Huppert was one of the busiest actresses in Europe, appearing in no fewer than seven films that year. Her eclectic taste in material and her ability to adapt to a variety of styles (both of which were to characterize her later work), were evidenced by outstanding performances that brought her to the forefront of her career. The first of these dream roles was Pomme, the simple provincial heroine of Pascal Laine's novel, The Lacemaker. Filmed in 1976 by Swiss director Claude Goretta, Huppert's characterization of a country girl undone by a summer romance, caused a sesation at Cannes and won Huppert international acclaim. Though she did not win the Best Actress prize at that year's festival, she won the following year with "Violette," the chillingly satiric study of Violette Noziere, a legendary 30's figure whose casual murder of her bourgeois father became a cause celebre. She also received the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival.

At this point in her career, Huppert was not only the busiest and most successful of all French actresses, she was also the most influential. Her participation alone made it possible for a number of films by uncommercial "auteurs" to be made and guaranteed mainstream distribution. Among the films of this period were "Loulou" by Maurice Pialat, "La Truite" by Joseph Losey, (which Losey had been trying to film for over a decade before Huppert's involvement), and two of the more visible films made by Jean-Luc Godard since the sixties, "Every Man For Himself" and "Passion."

Huppert's work also became more international at this point, taking her to Italy for "The True Story Of Camille" by Mauro Bolognini and "The Story Of Piera" by Marco Ferreri; to Hungary for "The Inheritance" by Marta Meszaros and, most famously, to America, for Michael Cimino's still-legendary "Heaven's Gate."

For all her work abroad, Huppert never abandoned French screens, alternating films by such proven French masters as Bertrand Tavernier ("Coup De Torchon"), Michel Deville ("Eaux Profondes"), Diane Kurys ("Entre Nous"), and Bertrand Blier ("My Boyfriend's Girlfriend") with her international projects. She also continued to use her stardom to foster new and smaller works by such directors as Christine Pascal ("La Garce"), Josiane Balasko ("Sac De Noeuds"), and her own sister, Caroline Huppert who directed the stylish comedy, "Sincerely, Charlotte."

In 1988, Huppert reteamed with director Claude Chabrol for "The Story of Women" which was received with artistic and commercial success. Two years later, their collaboration on "Madame Bovary" brought Huppert some of the best reviews of her career. Her other films include "Cactus," "The Bedroom Window", "The Possessed," "Migrations," "Malina," "A Woman's Revenge" and "After Love."

"All the characters in the film are trying to rebuild their lives--they are all amateurs in some way. Hal's characters are all outsiders -- they all have a sort of quest for love and they are all very fragile. This is very rare in cinema -- to show people who are not rooted in the world, who don't feel and behave like everybody else.

"Whenever you work with a good director you always learn. Making movies is a strange process. On the one hand you rely on experience. You have experience of the camera, but when you are investigating a new personality and working with a new director, no previous experience in the world can prepare you. Working with Hal is a new experience for me. And because it's in English I feel less experienced -- I feel more experienced when I am working in my own language.

"The fact that 'Amateur' takes place in America rather than Europe makes the feeling of being lonely and lost stronger and more believable. This is the first time I've worked in New York. It's one of those fantasies a French actress has, to work in New York -- in Soho and all these mythical places--for a European there's nothing better."