Mathilda May

About Mathilda May

Mathilda May (born Karima Mathilda Haim; 8 February 1965) is a French-Jewish film actress. Her most well known roles include portraying Space Girl in Lifeforce (1985) and Jeanne Gardella in Toutes peines confondues (1992).

Karin Haïm, known as Mathilda May, is a French actress and director, born on February 8, 1965 in Saint-Ouen (Seine).

A dancer by training, she made her film debut in 1984.

Biography
Karin Haïm is the daughter of the playwright Victor Haïm, of Greek-Turkish and Sephardic origin[1], and Margareta Hanson, Swedish ballet teacher and choreographer[2], parents whom she describes as "a mixture of races, total nonsense"[3]. At the age of 8, she told her parents that she did not like her name. With their support, she began procedures to have her first name changed[1] for Mathilde; His mother agrees. Later, a producer gave her the pseudonym Mathilda May. Her parents divorced when she was 12 years old and her younger sister 5 years old.

After being accepted into the three-month course at the Opéra Garnier, she passed an internal competition at the end of which the ten best young dancers were selected, and failed. The following year, she became a student at the Paris Conservatory in Christiane Vaussard's classical dance class and four years later, at the age of 16, she won first prize. However, she feels a certain boredom in this profession[4].

She was 18 years old when she went to an audition for the film Nemo, where they were looking for "a blonde who spoke English". Although she was neither blonde nor bilingual (she has since become quadrilingual), she was selected for the role. The producer of Nemo, Claude Nedjar, invited his parents to a dinner, where he told them: "Haïm is not a family name for a career. I thought about May." His parents nodded, they later revealed to him that Haïm was not his real surname but the middle name of his grandfather, Joseph Haïm Lévy. This surname had been abandoned in favor of Haïm, his father's pen name, when he was declared to be born.

Mathilda May then made a name for herself by appearing in Kings of Gag, then in the British science fiction film Lifeforce, The Star of Evil (1985), where she played an alien vampire. In France, she appeared in Le Cri du hibou (1987) directed by Claude Chabrol and Trois Places pour le 26 (1988) directed by Jacques Demy and in which she co-starred with Yves Montand. The latter film was a commercial failure, however.

In 1989, she won the Romy-Schneider Prize, rewarding a young hope of French-language cinema.

The actress then appeared in international co-productions such as Naked Tango (1991), or Devenir Colette (1991) and in the thriller Toutes peines combined, by Michel Deville, where she played opposite Patrick Bruel. Isabelle Eberhardt, in whom she plays the main role, goes unnoticed. She nevertheless continued her career on the big and small screen, and began in the theater in 1994. In 1997, she appeared in the American film The Jackal with Richard Gere and Bruce Willis. Subsequently, less present in the cinema, she continued to appear regularly on television. In 2008-2010, she performed on stage with Pascal Légitimus, in the play Plus si affinités.

Mathilda May began a career as a director in the 2010s, notably at the Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris where her show Le Banquet earned her the Molière for Best Director in a Public Theatre Show in 2019[5].

Personal life
His sister is the actress Judith Réval[6].

Mathilda May has been married and divorced three times[7] :

a first time with the musician Paul Powell[8] (1991-1993) ;
a second time with the composer Philippe Kelly[8].
She lived with the actor Gérard Darmon between 1994 and 1999; They have two children[9].

She was the companion of the Moroccan businessman Richard Attias for a few months, before he left her to live his romance with his mistress at the time, Cécilia Sarkozy, former wife of the President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy[9].

Since 2020, Mathilda May has been romantically involved with rapper Sly Johnson, ex-member of the group Saïan Supa Crew, of which she is also the director[10]. In 2021, she made her relationship official. The couple announced on Instagram that they got married in December 2022[11],[12]. In 2025, she divorced the rapper.