Copacabana Now Showing

France's answer to Meryl Streep is ready for an adventure, writes Garry Maddox.

The offer is inviting. ''Glass of champagne?'' asks Isabelle Huppert. Flanked by huge plates of petit fours and exotic fruit, the acclaimed French actress is clearly enjoying a night off from filming in Paris.

But if the setting seems cheerfully regal, Huppert immediately turns that on its head by asking about the health of the Australian filmmaker Paul Cox, who directed her in the drama Cactus 25 years ago and had a life-saving liver transplant on Boxing Day.

''Why don't we call him! That would be fun,'' she says impulsively before realising it is very early in the morning in Australia. ''I like Paul very much. I had a great time in Melbourne with him.''

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Surprisingly tiny in a dapper pant suit, Huppert has a rare quality: she looks like a palely handsome 57-year-old in the flesh but is nothing short of radiant on screen. Frequently playing defiant, ordinary women dealing with trauma in recent years, she is France's Meryl Streep for the record number of nominations for Cesar awards, the country's Oscars. She has 13 - for one win - as well as twice claiming best actress at Cannes - for Violette Noziere and The Piano Teacher.

In a career working with a who's-who of European directors - Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Otto Preminger, Bertrand Blier, Andrzej Wajda, Olivier Assayas, Michael Haneke, the Taviani brothers and now Anne Fontaine - other notable films have included Entre Nous, Loulou, Madame Bovary, 8 Women,Heaven's Gate and I [Heart] Huckabees. Her latest release isCopacabana, in which she stars with her daughter, Lolita Chammah.

''When I did Cactus she was with me,'' Huppert says. ''She was two years old. She knows Australia. She knows the pingouins of - where was it? - Phillip Island.''

In Copacabana Huppert plays the free-spirited Babou, who lives in northern France and dreams of escaping to Brazil. But faced with an angry, alienated daughter and a shortage of cash, she takes on a job selling time-share apartments in a bleak Belgian port.

In a quietly comic drama, Huppert delivers a rich portrait of a colourful and compassionate woman facing a crisis. Surprisingly, she was cast after her daughter.

''Lolita is a friend of [director] Marc Fitoussi,'' she says. ''She had a part in his previous film, La Vie d'Artiste. Marc knew from the beginning that he was going to ask her to be the daughter.''

The filmmaker describes Huppert as one of the few actresses who can play any character because of her talent and willingness to take risks.

''Although I only ever imagined Isabelle as Babou, it took me some time before I dared send her the script,'' he says. ''Compared to the dangerous, icy characters she's played recently, I was afraid she'd find Babou trivial and eccentric.''

Huppert responded to the character's spirit.

''She's a happy person and yet she has very good reasons to be unhappy and to be desperate. But she's a survivor.''

The actress initially found it difficult working with her daughter.

''For the first couple of hours, we just didn't believe in it,'' she says. ''It made me realise how much life is stronger than any fiction possibility.

''Just to be in front of each other as actresses, we thought, 'Oh, it's ridiculous.' We couldn't take ourselves seriously. We were laughing. Then, of course, we had to be serious and to do the movie.''

Huppert says the director is the main reason she usually - not always - chooses roles.

''I never did a movie without knowing who was going to be a director or without having some kind of attraction for a director,'' she says. ''Of course, the criteria of attraction is not the same whether it's a very well-known director or a first-time director.

''If it's a first-time director, you rely more on some other elements like the script. But to do a movie is always a signergy - do you say

that? - a synergy of several desires.'' Next up, Huppert is heading to the Philippines to play a foreigner kidnapped by terrorists for the director Brillante Mendoza, having met him while head of the Cannes jury that awarded him best director forKinatay last year.

''In a way, I'm still exactly at the same place I was 10 years ago or 20 years ago or when I started being an actress,'' she says.

''I'm in a certain comfort, of course. I'm privileged. But I'm in a state of mind of curiosity - always ready to welcome some unexpected adventures. I guess my next movie will be like this.''