Jean-francois Balmer

Child of the mountains, Jean-François Balmer was born in Valangin, Switzerland. Convinced that to be a good actor you have to have tried everything beforehand, between fifteen and twenty-four years old, he does odd jobs. Sander, delivery man, waiter, bell ringer, mountain guide, he tries everything. After having studied business, to realize his dream, he ended up going to Paris and began studying drama at the Conservatory, where he found himself in the same promotion as Daniel Mesguich and Jacques Weber.

When he left the Conservatory, he landed small roles in RAS (1973), under the direction of Michel Deville, in Le Mouton enragé (1974) alongside Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Pierre Cassel and Romy Schneider, and in Peur sur la ville (1975) by Henri Verneuil, with Jean-Paul Belmondo. At the same time, we see him at the theater where he made his debut in Le Mariage de Figaro (1973), directed by his friend Jacques Weber.



Despite his performance in La Menace (1977) by Alain Corneau, which earned him the César for best supporting role, he remained confined to supporting roles. While he plays a rogue cop in Flic ou voyou (1978) directed by Georges Lautner, and where he finds Belmondo again, we also see him as a dynamic cop in Neige (1981) by Juliet Berto, or as a secretary of Catherine Deneuve in L'Africain. He signed his very first collaboration with Claude Chabrol in Le Sang des autres (1983).

It was the director Jacques Bral who allowed him at the age of thirty-eight to obtain his first major role, playing the detective Eugène Tarpon in Polar (1984). For Jean-François Balmer, it's finally public recognition! He continued with L'Amour ou près (1985) where he obtained the lead role, and offered a stunning composition of Louis XVI in La Révolution française (1989), establishing himself as the great revelation of the film. He reunites with Claude Chabrol by playing Isabelle Huppert's husband in Madame Bovary (1991), but also years later in Rien ne va plus (1997), L'Ivresse duouvoir (2005) and Lucifer et moi (2008), interpreting roles certainly unforgettable, but very dark. The actor s tries in a more comical register by giving the answer to Laetitia Casta and Mathieu Amalric in Le Grand appartement (2006). He repeated the experience in 2009 with Mumu, alongside Sylvie Testud, and with Lucky Luke by James Hunt, where he found the actress.

This breakthrough in cinema did not prevent him, throughout his career, from increasing his appearances in the theater and on television. Since 1999, he notably plays Commander Gabriel Rovère in the detective series Boulevard du Palais, and plays famous characters, such as Georges Pompidou in Death of a President or Malesherbes in Chateaubriand in 2010, with Frédéric Diefenthal in the title role.

In 2012, the actor moved into François Ozon's house, with Fabrice Luchini and Kristin Scott Thomas. In this thriller , he plays the headmaster of a high school, confronted with a student who has ambiguous relationships with the family which inspires the characters in his writing.