Doubtless this helped brew her rebellious streak: she was expelled from five schools, before, at 16, being shipped off to Montreal to learn English.
Over the years, Béart has developed a reputation as a perfectionist — from spending 18 months learning the violin for Un Cœur en Hiver to prowling Parisian bars in search of prostitutes on which to model her character in Nathalie.
Before that, she took minor parts in television as a teenager.