People

By Sara C. Medina

Isabelle Huppert, 33, has spent most of her busy career in French films, including Passion and Entre Nous (both 1983) and, opening in the U.S. this week, Sincerely Charlotte, directed by her sister Elisabeth, 38. Of her two previous American-made outings, Rosebud (1975) struck few sparks and Heaven's Gate (1980) dropped a megaton bomb. Undaunted, Huppert is trying English again. Cactus, an Australian drama, opens in October, and she just finished shooting a mystery in Baltimore called The Bedroom Window. She plays a sultry, sophisticated woman, a "black angel," as she puts it, who cheats on her husband and fails to report a crime because it might reveal her affair. After many roles as a youthful seductress, Huppert welcomes the change of face. "My characters were more childish in my other movies," she says. "In The Bedroom Window I get to play a real woman."