Julie Delpy

Biography

Julie Delpy was born December 21, 1969 in Paris. Her parents were the actress Marie Pillet and the actor and theater director Albert Delpy. She first appeared in front of the camera at the age of 14 in Jean-Luc Godard's "Détective" and two years later took the lead role in Bertrand Tavernier's "La Passion Béatrice" (1987). She became internationally known for her role of a Nazi sympathizer who falls in love with a Jew in Agnieszka Holland's "Hitlerjunge Salomon" ("Europa, Europa", 1990). After this success, she began to spend more time in the U.S. and appeared in a variety of European and U.S. productions, many of which can be classified as arthouse. Among them Volker Schlöndorff's literary adaptation of "Homo Faber" (1991) with Sam Shepard, Krzysztof Kieślowski's "Three Colors" trilogy (1993/1994) and Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers" (2005). Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" (1995) and its two sequels, "Before Sunset" (2004) and "Before Midnight" (2013), follow the relationship of a young French woman (Delpy) and a young American man (Ethan Hawke) from the time they meet to marriage. She co-wrote the screenplay for both "Before Sunset" and "Before Midnight" with Linklater and Ethan Hawke, and earned an Oscar nomination for her work on the latter, together with her co-writers.    

Julie Delpy had already previously worked as a screenwriter, as well as a director and musician. After taking a summer course in directing at New York University, she made her first short film, "Blah Blah Blah", which screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995. She made her directorial feature film debut, which she also wrote and produced, with "Looking for Jimmy" in 2002. A year later, her first and so far only solo music album "Julie Delpy" was released.   

Delpy's other directing and screenwriting credits include "2 Days in Paris" (2007) and its sequel "2 Days in New York" (2012), for which she also composed the soundtracks and played the lead roles. In between, she shot the German-French co-production "Die Gräfin" ("The Countess", 2009) about intrigue and power struggles in 17th century aristocratic circles. Delpy also wrote the screenplay and music for this film and directed it. She played the lead role alongside Daniel Brühl, the cast also included William Hurt, Anna Maria Mühe and Charly Hübner.   

In 2019, "My Zoe" premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. The drama about a mother (Delpy) who tries to hold on to her deceased daughter by drastic means was, like her directorial works before, written and produced by her. The prominent cast of the international co-production includes Daniel Brühl, Nicolette Krebitz, Jördis Triebel and Nina Kunzendorf.  

Julie Delpy holds dual French and American citizenship since 2001 and lives alternately in Paris and Los Angeles.