Biography

Curvaceous yet willowy frame

Often plays seductive ladies with an eccentric sense of humor

Deep, alluring voice

There are male actors who have started a great career at 50 because they are suddenly noticed. How many actresses would that happen to? Women are under such pressure to look young. I have heard that, in Hollywood now, they have to get English actresses to play the grandma because there are no American actresses who look that age any more.

[on playing the role of Elmire in the London West End's 2018 bilingual stage production of Tartuffe] Most of the time Elmire is played as a prude and we wanted to do something different. Here we suppose she's had many lovers and she's as strong as he [Tartuffe] is so the struggle is more complicated. It reminds me of Les Liaisons Dangereuses - they recognize each other in themselves. It makes her more powerful and I prefer to play powerful women... and bad ones.

[on the metoo movement] In every revolution, there's always excess, and heads fall, so I think there's good stuff and bad stuff. People discovered it's more complicated to be a woman than a man? Big news! I'm very happy that these issues became a talking point. But I'm also, like: look, when you're a woman, you have to deal with harassment, aggression every day. We talk about it being bad in movies, but it's probably as bad, worse, in, say, the post office. Actors only have to work with people for weeks, months, but in other businesses, you can put up with harassment for years and in constant fear of losing your job for complaining.

[on the UK success of Spiral (2005)] It's a mystery for me because it's really about how the police and justice work in France which is completely different here. Maybe it's exotic...

[on the way metoo has been carried on in Hollywood as opposed to Europe] I think the Americans are too much... you can sue someone for anything. You can't put a guy in prison just because he tried because relationships are going to be really complicated. But it's important for the man to know that when a woman says 'no' it's 'no' and not maybe. I told the producers that in France you couldn't do a story about a teacher who's having a sex affair with one of her students, because in France we'd say "Lucky for him... what's the big deal?".