Charlotte Gainsbourg

The most striking sentence about Charlotte Gainsbourg's acting was made by her mother: by David Hudson's piece for Criterion, Jane Birkin said afterwards, and often, that her daughter was a far more talented actor than she was. In Lars von Trier's Antichrist she shared the lead with Willem Dafoe. By Ian Christie's assessment for Criterion, the film's prologue shows the death of a small child while its parents make love, and Christie calls the research material Gainsbourg's character has piled up in the loft of the cabin in the forest disturbing. Angela Schanelec, writing on the same film, speaks of watching two very well-known actors do crazy things on screen. L'Effrontée carried her to the César for most promising young actress in 1986, and in 2000 the supporting actress category came to her with La Bûche.