Julie Dreyfus

Julie Dreyfus (born 24 January 1966) is a French actress who is well known in Japan where she made her television debut on a French language lesson program on NHK's educational channel in the late 1980s. She has appeared on the TV show Ryōri no Tetsujin (Iron Chef) as a guest and judge. She is best known to western audiences for her appearances in the Quentin Tarantino films Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Inglourious Basterds, in which she played Sofie Fatale and Francesca Mondino respectively. Aside from her native French she is fluent in English and Japanese.

Julie Dreyfus
Dreyfus in 2007
Born	24 January 1966 Paris, France
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1992–present

Early life

Dreyfus was born and raised in Paris, the only child of French actress Pascale Audret and producer Francis Dreyfus. She is of French, Alsatian Jewish and half Romanian origin through her paternal grandmother. She is a descendant of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. She spent her summers in the UK. As a child she used to watch Woody Allen's early movies together with her mother.[1] She started learning Japanese in 1985 at the Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilization at the University of Paris, after studying interior design and becoming interested in Japanese architecture. She moved to Japan to study at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies for a six-month, intensive Japanese course, thinking that she would eventually land a job in interior design.[2] After finishing the course, she moved to Tokyo working part-time in a design studio while continuing her private Japanese lessons. In 1988, she worked as a French language instructor on the NHK morning-television-educational program. Centering on a mystery drama, chief producer Motoyoshi Sei hired Dreyfus to increase ratings by changing the program into an episode format.[3] Eventually, she was cast by Japanese network executives as the twenty-something beauty in several TV and film roles, leading her to become a gaijin tarento (foreign talent). She was also a judge on the cult-hit cooking show Ryōri no Tetsujin (Iron Chef).

Film career

Dreyfus portrayed the character of Sofie Fatale in Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film, Kill Bill Volume 1. She was a member of the 2007 Gérardmer Film Festival (Festival international du film fantastique de Gérardmer), which honored her Kill Bill co-star David Carradine.[4][5]

Dreyfus appeared in Vinyan in 2008 and in Tarantino's war epic Inglourious Basterds in 2009, as Francesca Mondino, a fictional French interpreter and mistress for Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.[6] She also appeared as a translator in the Leos Carax short film entitled Merde in the feature film Tokyo!

Filmography

Year	Film/television	Role	Notes
1986	Sekai fushigi hakken	Herself	unknown episodes
1992	Tōki Rakujitsu	Mary
1994	Rampo	Mademoiselle
1995	Ryôri no tetsujin	Herself/Taster/Panel Guest	2 episodes
	A Feast at Midnight	Mother
1998	Legal Aliens	Isabel
	The Crow: Stairway to Heaven	India Reyes	3 episodes
1999	The Godson	Laura
2000	Bathory	Lady Katarina
2002	Jean Moulin	Lydie Bastien
2003	Kill Bill Volume 1	Sofie Fatale	also casting associate
2008	Tokyo!	The interpreter
	Vinyan	Kim
2009	Inglourious Basterds	Francesca Mondino	Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2011	Interpol	Barbara

References

1. "BBC - Films - Web Access - Julie Dreyfus". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
2. Ehrman, Mark (6 October 2003). "Dressed to 'Kill'". Variety. p. 16.
3. "Fun factor injected into language programs". The Daily Yomiuri. 26 April 1993. p. 10.
4. "Ouverture du 14è festival du film fantastique de Gérardmer". Agence France Presse (Vosges) (in French). 31 January 2007.
5. "La comédie primée à Gérardmer". Le Progrès (in French). 6 February 2007.
6. H, Sebastian (7 October 2008). "From Fatale to Inglorious". The Quentin Tarantino Archives. Retrieved 6 September 2020.

External links

• Julie Dreyfus at IMDb