A presence in the French cinema since she appeared in Nadine Trintignant's L'Été prochain (1985) at the age of 13, Judith Godreche has made something of a reputation for herself starring in films in which she nearly always plays a woman involved with a much older man. This proclivity was on particular display in Jacques Doillon's La fille de Quinze Ans (1989), in which Godreche, in her role as the eponymous 15-year-old, hit the sheets with her boyfriend's father (played by Doillon himself); Benoît Jacquot's La Desenchantee (1990), which cast her as a young woman involved with her mother's lover; Olivier Assayas' Paris s'éveille (1991), which saw Godreche portraying a drug addict shacked up with Jean-Pierre Léaud; and Assayas' Une nouvelle vie (1993), in which she played a woman caught up in an abusive relationship with her father's lawyer.

Fortunately, the actress has had the opportunity to branch out into roles that don't require her to administer Geritol to her lovers; she earned some international recognition with her stand-out performance in Patrice Leconte's acclaimed Ridicule (1996), which cast her as the headstrong daughter of an 18th-century doctor (Jean Rochefort), and gained further introduction to an American audience with her sizable role as Leonardo Di Caprio's embattled love interest in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998). Back on her native soil, Godreche donned a lab coat to play a scientist who attracts the interest of Gérard Depardieu in the aptly-titled screwball comedy Bimboland (1998).