Arab-French actress Isabelle Yasmine Adjani of Arab origin denied rumors circulating around the agreement between her and Iranian director Abbas Kiarustomy, one of her favorite directors, to take up the leading role in his new film. The London based daily, Al Sharq Al Awsat, reported that Isabelle told the French magazine Tilamara that she heard Abbas had chosen her to star in his new Arabic movie, but regretfully her father did not teach her the Arabic language making her incompetent of taking up the role.
Isabelle expressed her anguish at not being able to be more diverse in her acting career and taking up the job with the Iranian director. She feels at a loss and a stranger among the actors of the East and an intruder who is out of place. She wished she had the opportunity to collaborate and merge her acting capabilities with the cinematic arena that is part of her origin.
Isabelle was born to an Algerian father of Turkish ancestry and a German mother. Raised and schooled in Paris, Isabelle began appearing in amateur stage productions, and at fourteen she made her film debut during summer break in “Le Petit bougnat”. Several TV commercials and feature films followed until she joined the prestigious Comédie-Française in the early 1970s. It was during this time that her talent attracted the attention of director François Truffaut, who later went on to cast her as the lead in “L'Truffaut's Histoire d'Adèle H.”.
She was chosen by People magazine in 1990 as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World", in addition to receiving Oscar nominations for Best Actress in L'Truffaut's. Histoire d'Adèle H., which served to elevate her to the status of France's top female movie star.
The American audiences discovered her brilliance when she starred opposite Sharon Stone in the thriller “Diabolique”, and in “Ishtar”
Regardless of her age, she still looks like she's in her twenties, which has helped her to take up more diverse roles. Her mixed Algerian and German background and public criticism of the French National Front's bias have made her the target of various French right-wing groups, which in a 1986 defamation campaign had momentarily convinced France that Isabelle had died of AIDS. Later she incurred the wrath of the Muslim world after reading from The Satanic Verses at the French Cesar awards for "Possession" and generally criticizing Islamic groups in Algeria. – Albawaba.com
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
