Irène Jacob

Irène Marie Jacob (born 15 July 1966) is a French-Swiss actress known for her work with Polish film director Krzysztof Kieślowski. She won the 1991 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for the Kieślowski film The Double Life of Veronique, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her 1994 film Three Colours: Red. Her other film appearances include The Secret Garden, Beyond the Clouds (1995), U.S. Marshals (1998), and Eternity (2016).

Early life Irène Jacob was born in Suresnes, Hauts-de-Seine, a western suburb of Paris. The youngest child with three older brothers, she was raised in a highly educated and intellectual family and environment: her father, Maurice Jacob, was a physicist; her mother, a psychologist; one brother, Francis Jacob, a musician; and her other two brothers, scientists. In 1969, at the age of three, Irène moved with her family to Geneva, Switzerland, where she became interested in the arts.

Jacob developed an interest in performing after seeing the films of Charlie Chaplin. "They took my heart", she has recalled. "They made me laugh and cry, and that was exactly what I was waiting for in a film: to awaken me to my feelings." In 1984, she moved to Paris, where she studied acting at the prestigious Rue Blanche (a French national drama academy).

Career In Paris, while a 21-year-old drama student, she obtained her first film role in the Louis Malle film Au revoir les enfants (1987), playing the part of a piano teacher. She followed her film debut with several French movies—mostly minor roles—over the next four years.

Polish film director Krzysztof Kieślowski cast her in the lead role of his film The Double Life of Veronique (1991), the allegorical story of two young women, one in Poland and the other in France, both of whom are played by Jacob. For her performance, Jacob won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival.

From 1992 to 1993, despite numerous offers from Hollywood that came in the wake of her success, including the lead role in Indecent Proposal, Jacob focused on smaller French films.

Jacob gained international acclaim as the protagonist in Kieślowski's Three Colours: Red (1994), which received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Screenplay. The film was also named Best Film or Best Foreign Film by the National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle Awards, National Society of Film Critics Awards, and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. It received César Award nominations for Best Film, Best Actor (Jean-Louis Trintignant), Best Actress (Irène Jacob), Best Director (Krzysztof Kieślowski), Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation (Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz). The New York Times included the film in its list of "The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made."

Naturally an introvert, Jacob has the ability to express the emotional turmoil of her characters with very few words. This was very evident in her performance in Three Colours: Red, the third part of Kieślowski's trilogy. Jacob described her unique experience working with the Polish film director:

Following the release of Three Colours: Red, Jacob retreated from public attention and took nine months off, spending most of her time reading Tolstoy, Balzac, Singer, and several autobiographies.

Jacob is author of the book Big Bang published in 2019.

Filmography

Awards Year Award Category Nominated work Result Ref. 1991 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress The Double Life of Veronique 1992 César Awards Best Actress 1993 Sant Jordi Awards Best Foreign Actress Award 1994 Nika Award Best Actress Predskazaniye 1995 César Awards Best Actress Three Colours: Red 2024 Locarno Film Festival Leopard Club Award