Emmanuelle Seigner

Some actors are known for what they do and others are known for who they associate with. French actress Emmanuelle Seigner was in the news for both. At first people noticed her for her looks, since she was a model before she started acting. However, theater ran in the family: her grandfather, Louis Seigner, was the head of the Comedie Francaise. She was also in the public consciousness due to her marriage to controversial director Roman Polanski, while he lived as a fugitive due to his fleeing jail time in America after his conviction for raping an underage girl.

For the bulk of her career, Seigner acted in small films little seen outside of France, although she also appeared in small roles of most of her husband's films, including the action thriller "Frantic" (1988) with Harrison Ford, romantic drama "Bitter Moon" (1992) with Hugh Grant and supernatural fantasy "The Ninth Gate" (1999) opposite Johnny Depp. In 2007, she had key roles in a pair of well-regarded biopics, the Edith Piaf story "La Vie en Rose" (2007) and the Julian Schnabel-helmed "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (2007), the story of a magazine editor who becomes completely paralyzed with the exception of his left eye. After appearing as the female lead in the Victor Hugo adaptation "The Man Who Laughs" (2012), Seigner garnered considerable acclaim for her fearlessly sensual performance opposite Mathieu Amalric in Polanski's adaptation of the off-Broadway hit "Venus in Fur" (2013).