Biography
The mother of Euro screen icon
Julie Delpy, Gallic actress Marie Pillet maintained a lower profile than her daughter (and thus never achieved Delpy's international crossover fame), but racked up a significant number of French supporting credits from the 1970s onward, and thus achieved some recognition and audience identification in her native country. For the most part, Pillet (unlike, say,
Marie-France Pisier or
Catherine Deneuve) seldom worked with top-tiered directors such as Truffaut and Chabrol, and instead collaborated with filmmakers whose fame was limited to France -- such as
Claude Zidi, Jean-Loup Hubert, and Roger Planchon. Early credits included the 1977
L'Animal (as a trapeze artist), the 1979
La Dérobade (as a young woman sadistically abused by a pimp), and the 1988
Dandin (as a sorceress). Pillet accompanied her daughter onscreen with a bit role in
Richard Linklater's
Before Sunset (2004). Two years later, she joined the cast of
Patrice Leconte's
My Best Friend (2006), a comedy about a cutthroat businessman (
Daniel Auteuil) who finds himself on the giving end of a decidedly odd wager. Pillet scored her highest role up through that time -- as Anna -- in Delpy's directorial debut, the romantic comedy
2 Days in Paris (2007). ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide