Zélie was born into the world of cinema. Her mother, Mao, was a script girl who worked with the biggest names in film at the time. Her father, François, was an actor, famous for his role in Les Brigades du Tigre. She would see her mother between films and, more rarely, her father, when he wasn’t acting or chasing after another love interest. She was still quite young when Mao fell in love with Claude Chabrol, whom Zélie calls by his middle name, Henri. She became his adopted daughter and one of his closest collaborators until the end of his life.