I was so happy when they cast me in Chocolat, because it’s one of my vices.
Each new film is like a trial. Before I step in front of the camera, I do not know whether I am going to fall or whether I am going to fly – and that is exactly the way I want it to stay.
I try to see my films just once. it’s like a dream you’ve been through when it’s been intense, and you just have to go through it once more just to make sure you’ve had it.
I won’t do something just for the sake of working.
Before I thought there was a common denominator between my films – as if all my characters were sisters – but I’m not so sure now.
My ambition is to have beautiful encounters, not to make money.
I have been proposed to four times. Twice at the beginning of a relationship and twice at the end of a relationship. I’ve never said no. I just didn’t give an answer!
It’s not a struggle to be on a diet. You feel lighter, and your spirit is lighter, too. But I love chocolate, and I allow myself to have chocolate. That doesn’t go against a diet for me.
But I’ve never felt that being an actress is being in a comfortable place. It’s seen from the outside that we’re being driven in big cars and having these gorgeous suites and all of that. But come on, it’s not about that.
I wanted to work with people from the world, with different minds and different visions.
When you make a film, it’s a bet. You don’t know how the film is going to be, anyway.
Sometimes I call directors. Sometimes I just meet with them. It just happens. It’s not that I’m pushy. It comes naturally. But I go ahead. I don’t stay in my armchair, waiting for the phone to ring.
I like being a mother, and I want to be involved in my work, so I have to make choices. If you’re a film actress, your career is from 20 to 45, but you can still dream.
I like independence, I like creating my own world, not being in a system. There are more possibilities, I think.
I’m very patient and always willing to try things but I have some resistance as well because I have my own vision. I have resistance sometimes because I see a director who’s freaking out and wants to have control and they sometimes anticipate about what I’m going to be doing or not.
It’s challenging as an actor to let go but I had some pleasure out of it too. To not have the effort of having to present myself is quite liberating.
A director could be 20 years old and an actor 60, or vice versa; it doesn’t matter. It’s about connecting sensibility and energy together, and having a vision that goes together and anchors the film as you go along.
My experience has nothing to do with creation, I don’t think, even though maturity is helpful. In a creation process, there’s an intuition that takes you and if it’s nourished with awareness and experience, it’s great.
George Clooney is trying his own way but he’s struggling too because he has to deal with America. Yet, if he has a foot in Europe, it’s not for nothing.
If a star is someone who gives light, then I can be a star. But if a star is someone who goes after money and magazine covers then it’s sick and I don’t want it!
She’s passionate in a doomed way; passionate about these tiny moments of routine she’s still managing to enjoy. Passionate about her morning coffee or the way she climbs the stairs. Yet one can clearly see that the light’s been taken out of her and she doesn’t want to get back to it. She can’t allow herself that love or openness because there’s too much pain.