Josiane Balasko

Daughter of a Yugoslavian bistro owner who died when she was a teenager, Josiane Balasko was raised by her mother and her grandmother. Very young, she dreams of embracing an artistic career. She began by taking an interest in drawing by integrating a graphic design school, then writing by writing science fiction short stories, and finally opted for comedy by taking theater lessons with Tania Balachova.

In the mid-1970s, Josiane Balasko joined the Splendid team as a replacement for Valérie Mairesse. At the same time, she puts on her own shows and plays Ginette Lacazein a play written by Coluche, to whom she is often compared. She appeared on the screen in 1973 in L'An 01 and found her first important role in Les Petits Câlins by Jean-Marie Poiré (1978). Developing an anti- sex symbol image , the actress rose to prominence at the same time as her comrades at Le Splendid, thanks to the success of the comedies Les Bronzés (1978) then Les Bronzés font du ski (1979), not to mention Le Père Noël is a junk (1982), in which she plays the exasperating Madame Musquin. The members of the troupe soon took their separate paths, but this collective adventure was the object of a lasting cult, since a third part of Les Bronzés was born in 2006.

Through films like La Smala (1984) or Nuit d'ivresse (1986), Josiane Balasko imposes on the screen a character of "ordinary woman to whom extraordinary things happen" (as she declares to the magazine Studio) . In 1989, thanks to Blier the Provocateur, she played the role of a secretary for whom Depardieu left Carole Bouquet in Too beautiful for you, one of his most memorable performances. The actress therefore multiplies the roles of composition: exalted activist in Everyone did not have the chance to have communist parents (1993), a pathetic alcoholic in A crime in paradise (2001). She surprises again by playing in 2003 a drifting woman-cop in This Woman,

Very present on the screens, the actress also embodies roles like Marguerite Duras in I Saw Kill Ben Barka (2004), the famous psychoanalyst in the TV movie Françoise Dolto, the desire to live (2008) or the discreet and solitary concierge. du Hérisson (2009), the adaptation of Muriel Barbery's novel. Josiane Balasko does not forget to play comedy, far from it, by filming for Gérard Krawczyk (La Vie est à nous!, 2005; L'Auberge rouge, 2007), Jean-Michel Ribes (Musée haut, musée bas, 2008), Gabriel Julien-Laferrière (Neuilly sa mère!, 2009), Guillaume Nicloux (Holiday, 2010), Djamel Bensalah (Le Raid, 2002; Beur sur la ville, 2011) or Alexandra Leclère (Maman, 2012).

Along with comedies (Demi-Sister, Les Gazelles, Le Grand Partage, Joséphine rondit, Retour chez ma mère, Neuilly his mother, his mother!), Which constitute her favorite genre, Josiane Balasko also appears in dramas. Among them: Volunteer, Thanks to God and Intervention. In 2019, she starred in two popular comedies: All Inclusive where she found Thierry Lhermitte and Beaux-parents where she again gives the reply to Didier Bourdon.

From the mid-1980s, Josiane Balasko took an interest in directing and revealed a new talent in the field. His first two opuses, Sac de Nodes (1985) and Les Keufs (1989), testify to his nonconformism and his taste for social satire. However, it was not until her fourth feature film, Gazon maudit (1994), on the subject, then taboo, of female homosexuality, that she obtained the votes of the critics and the public, as well as the César. for Best Screenplay in 1995. Interpreting colorful characters herself in each of her films, Josiane Balasko then brought to the screen two of her successful plays: Un grand cri d'amore (1998) and The Former woman of my life (2005), then began in 2008 the adaptation of Cliente, her novel published in 2005.