Agnès Jaoui

Agnès Jaoui
Agnès Jaoui at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival
Background information
Born	(1964-10-19) 19 October 1964 (age 52) Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Genres	World music
Occupation(s)	Actress, screenwriter, film director, singer

Agnès Jaoui (born 19 October 1964) is a French actress, screenwriter, film director and singer.

She frequently works in collaboration with her former partner Jean-Pierre Bacri.

Jaoui was born in Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, and is of Tunisian Jewish descent. She is the daughter of Hubert Jaoui and Gyza Jaoui, who are not related to the cinema industry but are both writers. They moved to Paris when she was 8 years old. She started theatre when she was in high school at the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. She entered the Cours Florent when she was 15.Patrice Chéreau, director of the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre where she followed drama classes since 1984, gave her a role in the film Hôtel de France in 1987. That same year, she also played in Harold Pinter's L'anniversaire beside Jean-Pierre Bacri, who will be later a faithful colleague and companion.

Together they wrote the play Cuisine et dépendances which was adapted onscreen in 1992 by Philippe Muyl. In 1993, director Alain Resnais asked them to write an adaptation of Alan Ayckbourn's 8-part play Intimate Exchanges, which became the 2-part film Smoking/No Smoking. Thanks to this ironic diptych about free will and destiny, they won the César Award for Best Writing in 1994. But it is in 1996 that they came to know greater success with Cédric Klapisch's adaptation of their play Family Resemblances (Un air de famille) which showed their ability to observe and depict everyday life, and to criticize the social norms through a bitter and corrosive humor. Once again, they won the César Award for Best Writing in 1997 and this very same year they collaborated again with Alain Resnais for Same Old Song (On connaît la chanson) which they wrote but also interpreted: together, they won their third César Award for Best Writing, and Jaoui won her first César Award for Best Supporting Actress.