Mathilda May

Mathilda May arrived on the set of Lifeforce in 1985 at just twenty years old, with a classical ballet background that shaped every one of her movements. Tobe Hooper was looking for an alien presence that needed no words to unsettle the audience.

And she made it happen.

That nude appearance walking through the corridors of a London scientific base haunted her for decades. The British press became obsessed with her body while she tried to get the world to see the winner of the first dance prize from the Paris Conservatory.

The daughter of playwright Victor Haïm and choreographer Margareta Hanson, she grew up in an environment where artistic rigor was the norm, not the exception. That's why her move into film was not a pursuit of fame but an extension of her physical work.

The Weight of an Early Award

Claude Chabrol was the one who truly understood that behind that icy gaze was a technical, meticulous actress. In 1987, they filmed Le Cri du hibou, and the French Academy presented her with the César for Most Promising Actress.

That was when her name stopped being tied to genre films and moved into the European arthouse circuit. But the French film industry is fickle with its female figures, and substantial roles soon began to dry up.

During the nineties she alternated big productions like The Jackal in 1997 alongside Bruce Willis with much more intimate projects in her home country. While filming Naked Tango in 1990, she had to learn to dance professionally in record time to meet the demands of Leonard Schrader.

So she began to write.

The Metamorphosis Behind the Stage

The turn of the century brought a lack of interesting roles on the big screen, which forced her to rethink her place in the profession. Mathilda May didn't want to be just a face on the poster of films that didn't interest her.

In 2014, she premiered Open Space (a wordless stage play), in which she drew on her choreographic roots to portray alienation at work. The piece did very well at the Paris box office and showed that her storytelling ability went beyond conventional acting.

She repeated the formula in 2018 with Le Banquet. In this production, she coordinated a large cast in a chaotic choreography that earned her the Molière Award for Best Direction.

Her work doesn't stop at stage directing.

In 2021, she appeared in the film Les Choses humaines under the direction of Yvan Attal. It is a dry courtroom drama in which she plays a supporting role that is essential to understanding the moral conflict at the heart of the story.

In 2024, she continued overseeing tours of her theater productions across French and Swiss territory. Staging these works requires complete control over the sound design and technical lighting.

The distribution contract for her latest work included an exclusivity clause for three national theaters in France.