Quotes

It's rare to find a director who really likes and knows how to look at a woman through the camera.

[in 1977] This is all very funny. Today I am a star - and tomorrow?

The Method is Judeo-Christian: if you go through pain, you can't miss. Rubbish. I'm more interested in the box itself than what's in it. How vs. why.

I like films that rest in the memory so I try and choose parts which have some kind of social or emotional force. For me, being an actress is not just a profession but a profession of faith.

[on the differences between American and French films] For me, there is no difference, for in both cases I remain myself. But as American budgets are more important, everything is in proportion and much more hierarchical, with a star system that, basically, exists only there, and that brings along constraints and a discipline unknown on European sets. In Europe, there are, even for a star, limits that can't be exceeded, or one risks being rejected by the crew. In America, the crew is really a proletariat in service of the star system, a system that functions like a true dictatorship and that no one, by the way, seems to challenge. No one says no, no one says stop. It's very strange.

Possession (1981) is only the type of film you can do when you are young. He [Andrzej Żuławski] is a director that makes you sink into his world of darkness and his demons. It is okay when you are young, because you are excited to go there. His movies are very special, but they totally focus on women, as if they are lilies. It was quite an amazing film to do, but I got bruised, inside out. It was exciting to do. It was no bones broken, but it was like, "How or why did I do that?" I don't think any other actress ever did two films with him.

[1995 interview] The soul preserves beauty. If there's something ugly inside, it will eventually surface, no matter how beautiful you are. I think sometimes I must have a good, strong soul, that all I've been through, in films and in life, has been kind to my face.

[on The Driver (1978)] A bad choice.

[on Ishtar (1987)] We just spent a few months in the desert. It was a nice script with wonderful actors and a director whose previous movies I really liked. And then....'Ishtar.' Well, these things happen.

[on Camille Claudel (1988)] There was this book, Une Femme - Camille Claudel, written by Anne Delbée and I kept being offered copies of it. And I remember thinking, "why is this Camille coming my way? She needs me in some way." I wanted to restore and honour Camille Claudel's dignity. She had been treated in the most unfair and horrible way and – after my experience – I could fully understand that. She was incarcerated for thirty years and viewed as a disgrace to her family for being the mistress of Rodin and being a sculptress, dirtying her hands in clay. Camille Claudel broke all barriers and I felt very close to her. Actually, I needed her too. I just had gone through this appalling AIDS rumour experience.