Jean-françois Balmer Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actor , Director
Nationalities French, Swiss
Birth April 18, 1946 (Valangin – Switzerland)

BIOGRAPHY
Child of the mountains, Jean-François Balmer was born in Valangin, Switzerland. Convinced that to be a good actor you must first have tried everything, between fifteen and twenty-four years old, he took on odd jobs. Sander, delivery man, waiter, bell ringer, mountain guide, he tries everything. After studying 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 .

Upon leaving the Conservatoire, 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 on the city (1975) by Henri Verneuil , with Jean-Paul Belmondo . At the same time, we see him in the theater where he debuts in The Marriage of 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 actor, he remained confined to supporting roles. While he plays a crooked cop in Flic ou rogue (1978) directed by Georges Lautner , and where he meets Belmondo again, we also see him as a dynamic cop in Neige (1981) by Juliet Berto , or even as 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 detective Eugène Tarpon in Polar (1984). For Jean-François Balmer, it’s finally public recognition! He continued with Love or Almost (1985) where he obtained the main role, and offered a stunning composition of Louis XVI in The French Revolution (1989), establishing himself as the great revelation of the film. He reunited with Claude Chabrol playing Isabelle Huppert ‘s husband in Madame Bovary (1991), but also years later in Rien ne va plus (1997), L’Ivresse du politique (2005) and Lucifer et moi(2008), playing roles that are certainly unforgettable, but very dark. The actor tries his hand at a more comic register by playing opposite 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 multiplying appearances in theater and on television. Since 1999, he has played Commander Gabriel Rovère in the detective series Boulevard du Palais , and has played 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 entered the house of François Ozon , with Fabrice Luchini and Kristin Scott Thomas . In this thriller , he plays the principal of a high school, confronted with a student who has ambiguous relationships with the family that inspires the characters in his essays.