Balasko has a successful career as a writer, actress, comedian and film director enjoying considerable success in all three. She lives and works in France.
Balasko began her career writing and performing with the caf' theatre troupe Splendid in 1976. In 1990 she was nominated for a César for best actress for Bertrand Blier's Trop Belle Pour Toi (Too Beautiful For You) opposite Gérard Depardieu and again in 1994 was applauded for her role in Tout le monde n'a pas eu la chance d'avoir des parents communistes (1994), movingly playing a working-class mother and communist activist in Paris of the 1950s. In 1996 she won a César for best original screen play for her film comedy Gazon Maudit (French Twist) in which she also starred as the film's lea
Jean-Philippe Blondel was born in Troyes, France, in 1964. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father worked for the National Railways. Jean-Philippe still lives in Troyes today after attending university in Paris and travelling around the world, including South and Central America, Nepal, India, and most of Europe.
Writing has always been Jean-Philippe’s way of expressing himself. He started writing poems when he was seven, then moved on to short stories as a teen. He wrote his first novel when he was 19. One book that had a profound effect on him as a child was Alice in Wonderland: he tended to identify with the White Rabbit…
Jean-Philippe’s favorite subjects at school were languages: French, English, and Spanish. He remembers telling hi
