Adèle Haenel

Adèle Haenel was born on January 1, 1989 in Paris, France.

She's one of only three non-Belgian actors to lead a movie directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne since Je pense à vous (1992), the other two being Arta Dobroshi in Lorna's Silence (2008) and Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night (2014). She played the leading role in The Unknown Girl (2016), which was originally meant as a Dardenne-Cotillard collaboration.

Worked with Vincent Rottiers in The Devils (2002) and with his half-brother Kévin Azaïs in Love at First Fight (2014).

She made her stage debut in 2012 at the Avignon Festival in a production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". It was filmed as La mouette (2012).

She first met Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne at a party in Paris, just after she was awarded the annual Prix Suzanne Bianchetti for most promising French actress [June 2014]. The leading role of Dr. Jenny Davin in The Unknown Girl (2016) had been originally meant for an older actress, but they decided to change her age so that Adèle would play her.

Was originally attached to Summertime (2015) and The Innocents (2016), but eventually withdrew from both projects, where she was respectively replaced by Izïa Higelin and Lou de Laâge.

Was cast in a 2016 stage production of Harold Pinter's "Old Times" at the Atelier Theatre. The play opened on the Parisian stage in 1971 when actress Delphine Seyrig personally gained the playwright's permission and led the cast of the original production. Adèle was Catherine Corsini's original choice to star in Summertime (2015) as Delphine Benchiessa, a character the director had named and partly modeled after the late actress.