Isabelle Huppert: ‘I was never the woman behind the man… the only place I could take was the main place’

‘She’s relentless. She doesn’t let go’: Isabelle Huppert photographed at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris by Cyril Zannettacci for the Observer. Photograph: Cyril Zannettacci/The Observer

Isabelle Huppert is a force of nature. Two days before we meet, she has arrived in Stockholm from New York via Paris. Two hours after she touched down, she was on stage rehearsing. The next evening, she opened in Mary Said What She Said, an extraordinary one-woman portrait of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Then she walked back to her hotel in high heels, through five inches of snow.

Now, she is sitting opposite me in an empty rooftop bar, especially reserved for our conversation. Drinking citron pressé, as the Scandinavian light seeps away through the early afternoon, she looks tired when she arrives but soon relaxes: her face is full of life.