Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Every movie, especially when you get involved... takes something out of you. You learn something, but you give something to the movie. And after the movie, if the experience has been intense and a true experience, you're a little different afterward.
I liked the idea of working with Jean Reno and Mathieu Kassovitz; there was something logical for me. I thought it was a good thing to do. Actually, The Crimson Rivers movie was a big success, and it was one of the biggest successes I ever had in France.
When eventually I started to act a bit more, I realised that circus school had taught me something that a lot of actors my age didn't have: physicality. They didn't know how to move. Acting is not all about talking. There is something animalistic about it.
I think people have a misinterpretation of Method acting, because Method acting is a wonderful thing. The thing is, if you take it too seriously, it's like religion. You start to think it's the truth. But it's not the truth. It's just a way to get somewhere.
I spent a whole year in New York without going back to France. And I always came back because my mother was living in New York since I was 13. So I went to summer camps, hang out at the Roxy, go to class for ballet, so I always had part of my life in New York.
I have a physical background. It's not like I'm a kung fu master, but my real training was dance school, and through that, I move to this thing called Capruera that I used in 'Ocean's 12.' I can pretend that I can do a lot of things, but then, I don't really master anything.
When somebody is talking to you about something terrible on set with lines, and you believe what he says, sometimes it gives a strange vibe, because you wonder when that person is talking if he's talking about something that really happened to him and he's using the character.
Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios.
I trained as a dancer when I was much younger, for a large amount of time, like 6 or 7 years. Not to be a ballet dancer, actually, but I thought it was a complement for an actor. I thought that actors should know how to move, should know how to juggle, should know how to do acrobatics.
I feel to look for perfection is a very dangerous path. More than that, it's dangerous because it doesn't exist. You can aim for it, but you already know you won't get there because it doesn't exist. Plus, I definitely think the flaws, little cracks, and accidents are a lot more interesting.
'Brotherhood of the Wolf' is a very important movie because it represents something new. The director Christophe Gans came up with the idea of taking a French legend and making it some kind of really strange, almost Chinese action movie. The result is something that I haven't seen anywhere before.
I spent a lot of time in boarding school. This is something I will never do to my kids. I think if you're having kids, then you have to take care of them; otherwise, what's the point? There are many things that parents say are good for the kids, but the truth is they say that because it is good for the parents.
I love to act. And between action and cuts, when you work for somebody great, it's wonderful, and I still love it. The moment where you create, that instant is still magic to me. But, all the rest, I get bored with it - all the waiting, and the fact that you have to make appearances, that you have to share your life.
It's now or never. This is simple to say, but then to live like that is not easy at all, I'm sorry. You have to be aware enough so that you can see situations as they pass in front of you and be able to catch the instant, whatever it is. Many times, you just don't see the moment when you were yawning and then it's too late.
La Haine - first of all, it was the story of friendship. I was very close with Mathieu Kassovitz; he was somebody I met in the nights of Paris. And the hip-hop scene and all that... You know, it was very much about doing our own thing, and some of the subject matter was so close to what we knew and the people we were hanging out with.
What I think I'm perceived as in France is, like, I'm this leading man always doing strange movies because most of the movies I did, like 'Irreversible' or 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' and a bunch of others, and even in France, they always come out as a particular movie, not like the typical French kind of movies that people know most of the time.
I didn't want to be part of that tradition of French cinema that wasn't really watched by the people of my age. I didn't really care to be in the last André Téchiné or Claude Chabrol movie, even though some of them are really interesting. For me, it was much more important to work with Mathieu Kassovitz or Gaspar Noé. It was for me a question of identity.
Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios. I still don't feel like I've been part of the stereotypical Hollywood system.
The thing is, as an actor, I get bored a little bit. I love to act. And between action and cuts, when you work for somebody great, it's wonderful and I still love it. The moment where you create, that instant is still magic to me. But, all the rest, I get bored with it - all the waiting, and the fact that you have to make appearances, that you have to share your life.
People are more familiar with pictures of Jacques Mesrine that had been taken of him at the end of his life, when he was doing a lot of things with the media. So there's an iconic figure that people know, and I had to eventually get there; otherwise I guess the audience would have been disappointed. My only problem is that I'm a skinny guy, and it's very hard for me to put on weight.
Steven Soderbergh really likes Irréversible, that's about all I can tell you. About the making, well, it was a very particular situation, because those people all know each other, and they're all big stars. I felt like the little French guy, really. And I was very flattered to be called on that, of course, but I felt like if I didn't find something to be a little original, different, particular in the movie, I would just disappear.
Yes. The way people behave, the paradoxes, the contradictions. All these things we have to live with and still pretend that everything is only black or white. That, I think, is the most interesting thing in human nature. The fact that we have to do one thing and pretend something else. That’s when it becomes very interesting. If you can literally speak the way you feel, then it’s not interesting anymore. It’s when you have to lie that it becomes interesting.