Fanny Ardant

Fanny Ardant — Biography

Fanny Ardant was born on 22 March 1949 in Saumur, France, the youngest of five children of a cavalry officer and military attache; she spent her childhood at a convent school in Monaco. At seventeen she went to Aix-en-Provence to study political science at Sciences Po, later working briefly at the French embassy in London before turning to acting. She made her stage debut in 1974 in Corneille's Polyeucte. Her performance in the 1979 series Les Dames de la côte caught the attention of director François Truffaut; during their relationship their daughter Josephine was born in 1983, and her lead role opposite Gérard Depardieu in his film La Femme d'à côté brought her a first César nomination in 1981. She went on to appear in Le Colonel Chabert, Ridicule and Huit Femmes, working with directors including Agnès Varda and Sydney Pollack, and portrayed opera singer Maria Callas in Callas Forever. She won the César for Best Actress for Pédale douce in 1997 and the César for Best Supporting Actress for La Belle Époque in 2020, and across her career has earned six César nominations, a European Film Award and the Stanislavsky Award in Moscow. She turned to directing with Cendres et sang in 2009, made a 2010 short film to draw attention to the plight of Roma people in Europe, and staged the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Greek National Opera in 2019.