ANNE PARILLAUD Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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ANNE PARILLAUD

Name: Anne Parillaud                                                                     
Born: 6 May 1960 Paris, France                                                           
                                                                                         
Anne Parillaud (born 6 May 1960 in Paris) is                                             
a French actress. She is married to Jean Michel Jarre. She has a daughter with           
ex-husband Luc Besson, Juliette, born in 1987.                                           
                                                                                         
A native Parisian and still a resident there, Anne was born May 6, 1960. While           
in school she studied ballet and her ambition was to become a lawyer, but a role         
during summer vacation - when she was only 16 - in Michel Lang's L'hôtel de la         
plage launched her into the world of film.                                               
                                                                                         
She is rather guarded regarding her private life and biographical details,               
preferring in her interviews to expound on metaphysical, as opposed to personal,         
questions. She believes her life outside of films - where she likes "dancing,           
talking with friends, things like that" - is prosaic: "Me, I don't like myself           
much. I'm not interesting. The pleasure for me is in the abandonment of myself.         
As an actress I want to give everything I can. That is my pleasure."                     
Additionally, she claims, "Fun' is not in my vocabulary. I have a problem being         
light, saying 'That's okay, that's fine.' I mean, no. It has to be always strong,       
always extreme, always passionate. And fun, it's nowhere. It's like 'cool'. I           
have no idea what that means because I am not someone 'cool'. I'm someone who           
tries to live by impulse first, and not by brain. If the extension of fun is             
being crazy, I like it. To break the rules, to let in crazy thoughts. But there         
has to be that extension."                                                               
                                                                                         
Her willingness and even impulse to "break the rules, to let in crazy thoughts"         
has often kept the French tabloid press in a lather, as during her past romantic         
liaisons with Alain Delon and Luc Besson. She and Besson have a daughter, but           
the couple separated shortly after he directed her in Nikita.                           
                                                                                         
Nikita was an especially intense experience for Anne: "For a while she was in me         
like a demon. I would do things I normally would not do. She was awkward,               
depressed, full of despair. But to me there was also a spiritual underline to           
Nikita. In a very excessive way she is a loudspeaker of the youth of society             
today. She destroys herself because she doesn't believe in anything on Earth."           
In preparation for the role, she underwent three months of judo lessons and             
target practice to hone her skills as a government assassin: "I hate guns, I             
hate violence, I hate the judo." Her early ballet training also came in handy           
for one amusing scene though she modestly downplays her physical gifts, saying           
only, "I have a chewing gum kind of body. I just forget about the bones."               
Despite the glamour and danger of her character, Anne cautions, "It never               
happens to me, this kind of story."                                                     
                                                                                         
In selecting films and directors to work with, she is rather particular, though         
her one criterion for choosing roles seems rather simple on the surface: it must         
touch her heart. Though hesitant to name names, when asked which directors she           
prefers to work with she responds: "Their common points would be authenticity.           
They aren't afraid to be unconventional ... to do just what they want and what           
they feel. (Parillaud brings her hand to her heart) It means there's some art in         
there, not just commerce."                                                               
                                                                                         
After the international success of Nikita Anne left France to star in three             
films abroad: Map of the Human Heart, Innocent Blood and Frankie Starlight. Of           
the experience of playing a vampire in John Landis's Innocent Blood she has said:       
"I fell in love with Marie in Innocent Blood because she wasn't born a vampire;         
she never decided she wanted to be. For me, it was a parable to talk about how           
you deal with this problem, which is when you are different. You think or you           
live or you want something different from everyone else. People don't follow you,       
because it's scary. You are quite alone in your choices."