Ariane Ascaride

Biography: life and films

Ariane Ascaride is an actress who is so strongly associated with the cinema of Robert Guédiguian that it is hard to imagine her in any other setting. Yet her film and television credits to date number around seventy and Guédiguian has only made 19 films, so it follows that Ascaride has spread her talents far more widely than is commonly thought. In fact, even before Guédiguian started making his films in the early 1980s, she was already an experienced stage actress, having studied drama at the Paris Conservatoire under Antoine Vitez and Marcel Bluwal. Born in Marseille, France on 10th October 1954, Ascaride was the daughter of a salesman for L'Oréal who transferred to her his love of the stage at a very early age.

It was whilst studying sociology at the University of Aix-en-Provence that Ariane Ascaride first met Robert Guédiguian. Their shared interest in student politics cemented their friendship and they married not long afterwards, in 1975. After leaving the Conservatoire, Ascaride began appearing on stage, in plays directed by her brother, Pierre Ascaride, an accomplished theatre director. She made her screen debut in Maria Koleva's Antoine Vitez s'amuse avec Claudel et Brecht (1976), and then appeared in René Féret's ensemble piece La Communion solennelle (1977). When her husband directed his first film, Dernier été (1980), she was the only professional in the cast list. She subsequently appeared in Guédiguian's next films, Rouge Midi (1985) and Ki lo sa? (1985), becoming one of his loyal troupe of actors that also included Gérard Meylan, Jacques Boudet and Jean-Pierre Darroussin.

It was her leading role in Guédiguian's Marius et Jeannette (1997) that made Ariane Ascaride a star of French auteur cinema. A critical and commercial success, the film also won Ascaride the Best Actress César in 1998. She followed this with an equally strong performance in her husband's subsequent La Ville est tranquille (2000). She has appeared in every film that Robert Guédiguian has so far directed, in a surprisingly wide variety of roles which she plays with remarkable conviction. Although Ascaride is consistently at her best in her husband's films, she has also lent her talents to many other directors, including Dominique Cabrera (Nadia et les hippopotames), Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (Drôle de Félix), Martin Provost (Le Ventre de Juliette), Éleonore Faucher (Brodeuses), Emmanuel Mouret (Une autre vie) and Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar (Les Héritiers). Few other actors are as committed to, or have done as much to promote, auteur cinema in France as Ariane Ascaride.

Filmography