Isabelle Huppert: Best Actress Nominee for Elle

Frankly, it came as a bit of a surprise to see Isabelle Huppert’s performance in Elle rising to the top of so many lists this year. Huppert, who plays a rape victim taking revenge on her rapist, won the Golden Globe and according to IndieWire, has won more Best Actress prizes than any other actress this year! I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, Huppert is an acclaimed actress internationally and the film’s director is Paul Verhoeven of RoboCop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct fame.

Now, here she is, in a French language movie—based on the French novel Oh by Philippe Djian—on the list of contenders for a Best Actress Oscar. And that’s a regular nomination, not in the Foreign Language category, which means she’s being nominated for a movie the majority of Americans won’t even see! Will the fact that it’s a movie about rape and revenge with a dark comic streak get you into the theater? 

Huppert’s fellow nominees include Ruth Negga for Loving, Natalie Portman for Jackie, Emma Stone for La La Land and Meryl Streep for Florence Foster Jenkins. I haven’t seen Streep’s performance but the other ladies are all magnificent.

Check out this interview via IndieWire’s Contender Conversation series. I’ll be posting additional clips from the conversation as part of my own Slacker Sunday series for Dreaming of France this Sunday, the 29th. Come back for more Huppert!