Early Life

Isabelle Adjani was born Isabelle Yasmine Adjani on June 27, 1955, in Paris, France. She is the daughter of German Catholic Emma Augusta "Gusti" Schweinberger and Algerian Muslim Mohammed Cherif Adjani. Her parents met when Mohammed was stationed in Germany near the end of World War II during his time in the French Army. Isabelle's younger brother, Éric, was a photographer, and he passed away in 2010 at the age of 53. Adjani grew up speaking German and French fluently. After she won a school recitation contest, she got involved in amateur theater. In 1976, People magazine reported that Isabelle had passed her baccalauréat and was auditing psychology and philosophy classes at the University of Vincennes.

Career

When Adjani was 14 years old, she made her film debut in 1970's "Le Petit Bougnat." Next, she appeared in the films "Faustine et le Bel Été" (1972), "The Slap" (1974), "The Tenant" (1976), "Barocco" (1976), "Violette et François" (1977), "The Driver" (1978), and "Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979), and she played the title role in 1974's "Ariane" and Emily Brontë in 1979's "The Brontë Sisters." Isabelle received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Adèle Hugo in 1975's "The Story of Adele H.," and she won awards from the Bambi Awards, Cartagena Film Festival, David di Donatello Awards, National Society of Film Critics Awards, and New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Around this time, she also starred in the TV movies "L'école des femmes" (1973), "L'Avare" (1974), and "Ondine" (1975) and the miniseries "Le Secret des Flamands" (1974). In the '80s, Adjani appeared in the films "Clara et les Chics Types" (1981), "Possession" (1981), "Quartet" (1981), "L'Année prochaine… si tout va bien" (1981), "All Fired Up" (1982), "The Last Horror Film" (1982), "Antonieta" (1982), "Deadly Circuit" (1983), "One Deadly Summer" (1983), "Subway" (1985), and "Ishtar" (1987), and she gave an Oscar-nominated performance in 1988's "Camille Claudel," making her the first French actress to earn two Academy Award nominations.

Primary Income Streams & Multi-Million Contracts

In 1990, Adjani narrated the documentary "Lung Ta: Les cavaliers du vent," then she starred in the films "Toxic Affair" (1993), "La Reine Margot" (1994), "Diabolique" (1996), and "Paparazzi" (1998). She began the 2000s with roles in the 2002 films "The Repentant" and "Adolphe," and she went on to appear in "Bon Voyage" (2003), "Monsieur Ibrahim" (2003), "Skirt Day" (2008), and "Mammuth" (2010), and she voiced Mother Gothel in the French dub of the 2010 Disney film "Tangled." Next, Isabelle appeared in films such as "De Force" (2011), "David et Madame Hansen" (2012), "Ishkq in Paris" (2013), "French Women" (2014), "The World Is Yours" (2018), "Soeurs" (2021), "Peter von Kant" (2022), "Masquerade" (2022), "Wingwomen" (2023), and "Natacha, presque hôtesse de l'air" (2025), and she starred in the title role in 2016's "Carole Matthieu." In 2024, she co-starred with Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber in the Netflix miniseries "The Perfect Couple," which is based on the 2018 Elin Hilderbrand novel of the same name. In 2025, Adjani returned to Netflix in the miniseries "Under a Dark Sun" ("Soleil noir").

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Personal Life

Real Estate, Luxury Assets & Personal Investments

Isabelle has two sons and has been romantically linked to Bruno Nuytten, Warren Beatty, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Jean-Michel Jarre. In 2023, Adjani received a two-year suspended sentence for tax fraud. According to Variety, she "was found guilty of setting up her permanent residency in Portugal between 2016 and 2017 to avoid paying €236,000 in taxes, depositing €120,000 into a U.S. account without declaring it and disguising a €2 million donation into a loan."

Awards and Nominations

Adjani received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role for "The Story of Adele H." (1976) and "Camille Claudel" (1990). She has earned nine César Award nominations, winning for Best Actress (Meilleure actrice) for "Possession" (1982), "One Deadly Summer" (1984), "Camille Claudel" (1989), "Queen Margot" (1995), and "Skirt Day" (2010). Among her many awards, Isabelle has won the SACD Awards' Suzanne Bianchetti Award (1974), a Bambi Award for Film – International for "The Story of Adele H." (1978), a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress award for "Quartet" and "Possession" (1981), a Berlin International Film Festival Best Actress award for "Camille Claudel" (1989), the Montréal World Film Festival's Grand Prix Special des Amériques (2004), a Lumiere Award for Best Actress for "Skirt Day" (2010), and the Marrakech International Film Festival's Golden Star (2016).

Isabelle Adjani Net Worth

Wealth Trajectory & Future Earnings Projections

Adjani

Mélanie Laurent Net Worth

Laurent