“Unfortunately, I have nothing positive to say about the man”

Reactions are multiplying after the death of Niels Arestrup this Sunday, December 1st. That of Isabelle Adjani, interviewed by The Parisiandetonates. She has never forgotten the slap the actor gave her forty years ago.

The world of cinema and theater is in mourning after the announcement of the death of Niels Arestrup at the age of 75 this Sunday, December 1. “I admired him enormously, he was someone completely rare, very sensitive, very talented, so deep and cultured, a unique actor”explained in particular the actress Françoise Fabian interviewed by The Parisian . She only remembers “wonderful relationship with him”. The daily's website also revealed Isabelle Adjani's reaction, the opposite of that of Françoise Fabian. Forty years after her collaboration with Niels Arestrup, the one who still sends her condolences to the actor's family, has still not digested how it ended between them.

In 1983, Isabelle Adjani left the room Mademoiselle Julie by August Strindberg at the Edward VII Theater, in which she played with Niels Arestrup who had slapped her, reports The Parisian. The actor replied that she had been, according to him, the first to slap him. “Personally, I unfortunately have nothing positive to say about the man. My memory of the theater partner remains a significant trauma”commented the 69-year-old actress. “But Niels Arestrup was a great actor, I share this opinion, that of many artists and his audience”she concluded.

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Isabelle Adjani is not the only actress who did not have good memories of Niels Arestrup

Some describe him as kind to the new generation, others as violent at times. Niels Arestrup was often seen as “a character actor” more “he was a sensitive and very kind man”, said Jean-Michel Ribes on franceinfo. On its website, public radio recalls that in 1996, actress Myriam Boyer accused him of almost strangling her during a performance of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. About ten years later, in the columns of Liberation in 2007, he admitted to having “punctured Miou-Miou's eardrum with a slap during filming” et “broken Maria Schneider’s tailbone” the same day.