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Julie Maes is a Belgian actress fluent in English (UK) and French. She is the granddaughter of cinematographer Charles Abel, the great-granddaughter of writer Henri Vandeputte, and the great-grandniece of Swiss painter Robert Hainard. Her mother, Claude Abel, was an unknown drawing artist.
During her early childhood, she lived on a tea plantation in Africa, where she was home-schooled and spent much of her time climbing trees.
Returning to Europe, she attended an alternative school, Decroly, which valued hands-on creativity, theater, and independent thinking. She performed in a play annually and loved it. As her family life grew increasingly chaotic, school became her refuge.
At twelve, on a hill, she decided to take control of her own life and began earning pocket money. As a teenager, she excelled in basketball and soon joined the national team. She had her first real job at seventeen and left home at eighteen. She studied psychology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), balancing two part-time jobs and evening classes at the theater academy.
After graduating, she enrolled in the theater conservatory in Liège while continuing part-time work. Feeling stifled, she was encouraged by Ève Bonfanti to leave school and pursue acting professionally. She learned juggling, created shows like Julie la Clownesse and Armelle Polichinelle, performed in the streets and various theaters, and taught masks, clowning, improvisation, puppetry, creativity, juggling, and singing.
Casting director Patrick Hella gave her her first TV role in the 1998 film Théo et Marie and her first film role in 2009 as a joyful nun in Stijn Coninx's Sister Smile. She later collaborated on numerous projects with Patrick, Michaël Bier, and Doriane Flamand.
She became a mother at thirty-five and thirty-seven, then moved to the Belgian Highlands wilderness two years later, where she homeschooled her children for four years while continuing her career as an actress, clown, and burlesque diva.
Life dealt her another blow when her marriage ended, but her resilient spirit prevailed. She divorced, temporarily stepped back from clowning, and began training in the Sanford Meisner Technique.
A survivor, Julie Maes cherishes every moment, lives passionately, and her radiant smile is known to warm hearts and brighten rooms. When not in Brussels, Paris, or London, she resides as a single mother with her children, cats, chickens, and weeds in a wild, natural setting.
