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 , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

's educational channel in the late 1980s. She has appeared on the TV show ''Ryōri no Tetsujin'' (''

Iron Chef is a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1993, was a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle bui ...

'') as a guest and judge. She is best known to western audiences for her appearances in the

Quentin Tarantino Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, dark humor, non-linear storylines, cameos, ensembl ...

films '' Kill Bill: Volume 1'' and ''

Inglourious Basterds ''Inglourious Basterds'' is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an altern ...

'', in which she played Sofie Fatale and Francesca Mondino respectively. Aside from her native French she is fluent in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Early life

Dreyfus was born and raised in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, the only child of actress Pascale Audret and producer Francis Dreyfus. Her father was of Romanian-Jewish and Alsatian-Jewish ancestry, and her mother was of French descent. She spent her summers in the UK. As a child she used to watch

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

's early movies together with her mother. She started learning Japanese in 1985 at the Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilization at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

, after studying interior design and becoming interested in Japanese architecture. She moved to Japan to study at the

Osaka University of Foreign Studies , abbreviated to OUFS or , , or was a national university in Osaka Prefecture, Osaka, Japan. It was dedicated to area studies and the study of foreign languages and their related cultures. History Osaka University of Foreign Studies (OUFS) wa ...

for a six-month, intensive Japanese course, thinking that she would eventually land a job in interior design. 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. 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 Television personalities in Japan, known as in Japanese, are celebrities who regularly appear in mass media in Japan, especially as panelists on variety shows. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, bankable stars in America were described as "ta ...

'' (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

's 2003 film, ''

Kill Bill Volume 1 ''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' is a 2003 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who swears revenge on a team of assassins (Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Vivica A. Fox) an ...

''. 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 David Carradine ( ; born John Arthur Carradine Jr.; December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009) was an American actor best known for playing martial arts roles. He is perhaps best known as the star of the 1970s television series '' Kung Fu'', playi ...

. Dreyfus appeared in '' Vinyan'' in 2008 and in Tarantino's war epic ''

'' in 2009, as Francesca Mondino, a fictional French interpreter and mistress for Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. She also appeared as a translator in the

Leos Carax Alex Christophe Dupont (born 22 November 1960), best known as Leos Carax (), is a French film director, critic and writer. Carax is noted for his poetic style and his tortured depictions of love. His first major work was '' Boy Meets Girl'' (198 ...

short film entitled

Merde ''Shit'' is a word considered to be vulgar and profane in Modern English. As a noun, it refers to fecal matter, and as a verb it means to defecate; in the plural ("the shits"), it means diarrhea. ''Shite'' is a common variant in British a ...

in the feature film ''

Tokyo! ''Tokyo!'' is a 2008 anthology film containing three segments written by three non-Japanese directors, all of which were filmed in Tokyo, Japan. Michel Gondry directed "Interior Design", Leos Carax directed "Merde", and Bong Joon-ho directed "S ...

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dreyfus, Julie 1966 births Living people Actresses from Paris French expatriates in Japan French film actresses French Ashkenazi Jews French people of Romanian-Jewish descent French people of Jewish descent Expatriate television personalities in Japan Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners 20th-century French actresses 21st-century French actresses