I was born the day after the fireworks display on the 15 July 1969.
It was the Armstrong year on the NASA Calendar.
“A small step for man, and a big push for my mother”
I’ve heard you can see Limoges from the moon.
Since my father was a Notary’s clerk and my mother was a housewife, everything seemed to point to my becoming an actress.
I ran away for the first time, with the neighbor’s boy, when I was 4 years old. We got married a few days later, using a couple of the bulldozers in the projects as an alter and some of God’s creatures for witnesses as they slowly suffocated in my crayon box.
In the fourth grade my teacher confused dyslexia with my having the IQ of a shrimp and led me to wasting a year putting square blocks in square holes and round blocks in round holes.
Once I realized that there was no future to stacking blocks, I enrolled at the conservatory; taking dance, Celtic harp, and music reading courses. I also borrowed my grand-mother’s paints.

1984, I began attending the Paris Conservatory of Dance.
As the auditioning committee were expressing their disappointment at my poor dance skills, I dared to answer back, saying that of course my dancing wasn’t good, I was applying to learn.
The bluff worked and I was admitted. What followed was a life split between high school, the dorm, dance lessons, and competitions. I couldn’t take it, so I ran away, going to La Rochelle to take professional dance lessons from Colette Milner.
In her dance shows I mainly played character roles. Could I have missed my vocation? Was I really meant to be an actress?

1986, I was back to Paris against my family’s wishes; living in a one room flat on the 27th floor, with no elevator, where a mildew concert accompanied the choreography of cockroaches. I was living “Fame” in my little room.
Living a bohemian lifestyle means we’re happy (I copied this from Charles Aznavour’s bio).
The conservatory paid for dramatic acting classes (for which I am eternally grateful).
I made my first important career contacts, most notably with Sotigui Kouyaté (of Peter Brook’s theater company) who was following my progress.
I did a series of odd jobs, like the part-time job I had with an insurance company studying socio-necrophilia for the “burial policies” department.
I hate calling nice old people to talk about caskets. I think I can still hear the sound of the little ladybugs transforming my crayon box into Maracas.

1991, I went to the local swimming pool and found myself in Japan.
The pool wasn’t that deep, rather, on the way there, as chance would have it I auditioned for a few Japanese showbiz people in my bathing suit, and I was hired on the spot. Two days later I was in Osaka performing in a Japanese cabaret.
Japan lasted for seven months after which I returned to Paris.
I started to get real acting work: television, the big screen. It slow at first, like a comatose dervish… nothing to shake a stick at. Then, finally things just sort of began to click…
For the big screen I have worked with directors including Jean-Luc Godard, Samir Aldin, Hiner Saleem, Eric Assous, Pierre Yaméogo, and Jean-Jacques Annaud.
For television I have worked with directors including Edouard Molinaro, Caroline Huppert, Elisabeth Rappeneau, Jacques Fansten, Sarah Levy, Jérome Foulon, Philippe Venault, and Christiane Lehérissey.
And on stage with Gilles Dyrek, François Rollin, Pierre Mondy, Irina Brook…

The dervish finally woke up.






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