Born in Montreal , Quebec , into a Catholic French Canadian working-class family , she received a strict convent education for twelve years before entering the Montreal 's Conservatoire d'art dramatique , where she was trained in the great classics of French theater . She is of French Canadian and Irish ancestry . Bujold received a strict convent education for twelve years , before entering the Montreal 's Conservatory of Dramatic Art , where she was trained in the great classics of French theater .