Julie Delpy Husband: Who Is Her Partner Marc Streitenfeld?

Julie Delpy’s husband is widely reported to be Marc Streitenfeld, a German-born film composer who has scored several of Ridley Scott’s films. As of 2026 the actress and filmmaker is 56, and she has kept her family life far from the spotlight.

Quick facts

Who is Marc Streitenfeld?

Streitenfeld came up as a collaborator of Hans Zimmer before becoming Scott’s go-to composer, with credits that include American Gangster, Robin Hood and Prometheus. He and Delpy are reported to have met through the film world, and he later worked on projects connected to her. Neither has made a habit of discussing the relationship in interviews, so details beyond the basics are scarce. That reticence is consistent with Delpy’s general approach: she talks about her work with candour and keeps home life mostly offscreen.

Before Streitenfeld, Delpy was linked in the press to actor Adam Goldberg, with whom she worked on 2 Days in Paris and who appeared in her later films. That earlier relationship is well documented as a creative partnership as much as a romantic one.

From Paris to Hollywood

Delpy grew up in a theatrical family, and her parents were both actors. She started on screen as a teenager, drawing early notice in Jean-Luc Godard’s Detective in 1985, and she later studied film at New York University, which fed her ambition to write and direct. She also appeared in Europa Europa and Voyager before her breakthrough in international cinema arrived with Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors: White in 1994, a role that put her in front of arthouse audiences worldwide.

The film that defined her career followed in 1995. Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise paired her with Ethan Hawke as Celine, a French student who spends one night wandering Vienna with an American stranger. The pair returned for Before Sunset in 2004 and Before Midnight in 2013. Delpy co-wrote the latter two with Linklater and Hawke, and the screenplays earned Oscar nominations for adapted screenplay.

What made the trilogy remarkable was its patience. Each film checked in on the same couple roughly nine years after the last, and the dialogue-driven scripts allowed the characters to age in real time. Critics regularly place the series among the great achievements of modern independent cinema, and Delpy’s contribution as a co-writer is a large part of that reputation.

Behind the camera

Delpy never wanted to be only an actor. She moved into directing with Looking for Jimmy and then Two Days in Paris in 2007, a comedy she wrote, directed, starred in and even scored. A sequel, 2 Days in New York, came in 2012, with Chris Rock opposite her. She has also directed The Countess, a period drama in which she played the infamous Elizabeth Bathory, as well as Lolo and The Skylab, the latter a warm period piece about a family holiday in 1979 Brittany.

She has been vocal about the difficulty of financing smaller, female-led films. Her own route, writing her own roles and often producing, is a response to that: when the parts she wanted weren’t offered, she made the films herself.

Life away from the cameras

Delpy holds both French and American ties and has lived in Los Angeles for years. She has a reputation for being outspoken and funny, qualities that show up in the scripts she writes. Beyond that, she has said little about domestic life, and this article sticks to what has been publicly documented.

What fans ask

Searches about her husband usually come from viewers who have just finished the Before films and want to know whether Celine’s real-life counterpart found happiness. The honest answer is that she keeps things private, so the details are limited to what’s been widely reported: a long relationship with a composer who works in the same industry. Fans also ask which of her films to watch after the trilogy; 2 Days in Paris is the obvious next step, since it shows her comic voice most clearly, while The Skylab is a gentler, more nostalgic choice.

Frequently asked questions