Hippolyte Girardot


Biography

Hippolyte Girardot dreamed of working on movie sets as a child, and after meeting French director Yannick Bellon, who was a friend of his mother's, he got his wish. Bellon cast him in his 1974 drama "La femme de Jean" as a cheerful teenager who helps his mother through a painful divorce. Girardot spent the next few years working odd jobs and returned to the screen in the 1983 romantic dr...

Biography

Hippolyte Girardot dreamed of working on movie sets as a child, and after meeting French director Yannick Bellon, who was a friend of his mother's, he got his wish. Bellon cast him in his 1974 drama "La femme de Jean" as a cheerful teenager who helps his mother through a painful divorce. Girardot spent the next few years working odd jobs and returned to the screen in the 1983 romantic drama "Le destin de Juliette," about a blacksmith's daughter who is forced to choose a wealthy and abusive suitor over her true love. He worked steadily through the '80s, most notably appearing as a peasant schoolteacher in the critically acclaimed "Manon des Sources," the sequel to the cruelly ironic "Jean de Florette." In 1989, Girardot landed a breakthrough role in "Love Without Pity" with a sweet yet sad portrayal of an aimless dreamer who falls in love with an ambitious woman. After appearing as an unemployed political protestor in "Long Live the Republic" and as a suicidal traveler in the romantic comedy "Jump Tomorrow," he was cast as a high-powered businessman in Arnaud Desplechin's "Playing 'In the Company of Men'," a film concerning one ruthless family's struggle for financial power, and he later appeared in several more of the award-winning director's films. In 2009, Girardot wrote and directed his first film, the sweet but meandering "Yuki & Nina," which chronicled a young girl's attempts to deal with her parents' divorce and her subsequent move to Japan.

Life Events

Bibliography