I wouldn’t say I was a rebel as such, but I certainly wasn’t right at school.

When I’m playing a part, I can feel all my body playing it; it’s like really making love.

Often, when you see yourself on the screen, you feel like a sweater that’s been put through the washing machine. You have the impression of having done something full and luminous, and suddenly, when you see it on the screen, it’s turned back into a tiny little thing.

The press follow me. I sue them. That’s the deal.

I think my best work has been in France with great men. It’s been my great fortune to work with really great men – with Olivier Assayas, Raoul Ruiz, Jacques Rivette. I am tutored by them.

My looks haven’t prevented me from playing prostitutes or people broken by life. But when they need a token blonde with big breasts, that’s OK, too. It’s part of the game.

Once I opened my eyes to the realities of life, I couldn’t close them.

I was a very bad student. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn’t want to go farther in school. I hated school and was always the bad one; I was always insulting the teachers.

Very often with an American movie, the end is very happy and you just feel good when you go out. When you go to a French movie, it’s kind of like, oh!, and you can’t go out; you’re stuck in your chair. It goes so deeply inside of the heart.

In Hollywood there’s no real material. They would send me stuff, but I hadn’t even seen the director. If I don’t see the director’s eyes, I’m not going. I’m not even going to pack my bags.