A film based on a jolly good John Grisham book is fine, but I like to get a bit under the skin.
A lot of young actors will do a scene and then run off and look at themselves. I don't believe in that at all.
Acting came, sort of, out of the blue.
And then I was in Signs And Wonders, and played Miss Havisham in Great Expectations.
But I'm in a sense fearless when I'm doing things.
But my training is instinctive and it's my training, it's what I've taught myself as I've gone along as to how to get the effect that I want.
Could be a little mouse inside my own home, but once I'm on a set - that's what I do, that's what I feel makes me move on: going out without a net. I have no fear of real things - I'm terrified of all the rest - but I don't know reality, because I've always lived somehow marginal with reality.
Doing cinema is not about watching yourself.
European films were what it was about for me - the sensations I needed, the depth, the storytelling, the characters, the directors, and the freedom that you can't really find in American films.
French women have been made beautiful by the French people - they're very aware of their bodies, the way they move and speak, they're very confident of their sexuality. French society's made them like that.
I am fascinated by the whole process of what it's like to be alive, whether it's unbelievably uncomfortable and horrible or whether it's quite nice.
I can occupy myself quite easily with what's going on inside me.
I decided a long time ago that it's easier to spontaneously say what you think. Quite often you can get to know yourself a bit.
I did that film just so I could kiss Robert Redford.
I don't think people have not thought of me; that hasn't been the problem. They might've had difficulty putting me in things, because I was rather an odd character; not quite a conventional actress.
I made my break with that when I was twenty-three and decided that I needed to find characters that weren't in English cinema at that time.
I preferred acting in European films right from the start of my career.
I regret not having enough training, I trained for a year at The Royal Court, but I very quickly went off to do films and television.
I think that most actors don't have very good opinions of themselves.
I think that when a young man of thirty-two wants to film a woman of fifty, there is something very romantic about that.
I think the reason I have secrets is because there are a lot of things I haven't been able to let out and I'm able to let them out through the screen and this medium.
I think what we do best, in the artistic world, are the things where we're handicapped.
I thought about singing but that become impossible because my father didn't want that.
I'm not very good at talking and being with people, and being gregarious and outgoing. I love people, but I have great difficulty doing it.
I'm over the moon, actually, because there are 500,000 people in Paris that have seen Under The Sand.
I've always understood that Hollywood doesn't have too much to do with me.
If words don't have vibration behind them, and a real feeling behind them, then they're just words.
It's a kind of idealistic love that I have with all these directors. They're figureheads for me.
Just as well I had Orca Killer Whale, otherwise not a child in the world would know who I was. They couldn't see any of my films.
One of the reasons I don't see eye to eye with Women's Lib is that women have it all on a plate if only they knew it. They don't have to be pretty either.
Quite often in life, when a tragic event arrives it becomes a springboard for mirroring all other things in one's life that one hasn't come to terms with.
So a fulfilled woman sometimes looks beautiful, and sometimes doesn't look so beautiful, but you don't have to worry about that because it's all in a day.
So I always feel that there is a role around for me, though I might have to wait around for nine months or a year, but I don't mind that.
So it was through Italy that I found the roles I needed.
The comparison thing for me has never worked in anything. I don't compare things.
The French have always been really interested in sex, they've always been very open about it - married men have had mistresses, it was the traditional thing; and women have always been included in society.
The process of filmmaking is very musical, you get into the rhythm and the rhythmics of how someone is, especially with Woody Allen who is very much into body language and body movement.
These directors are so much part of me - they've made me and helped me along the way.
To grieve is something extremely difficult, we don't even know how to begin to grieve, and I don't know how you can be taught to grieve.
Training is fabulous because it gives you a basis, a strong structure, so that when you're unbelievably nervous and you think that you can't get a word out, you will get the word out.
What you have to do is somehow turn off the sound of all the stuff that's going on when a film like Night Porter comes out, and just move on, knowing what you've done.
When life hits you very hard it's the biggest challenge.
When people want to see your film you're over the moon because you've actually made real contact. That's something very special.
When you work with a director you become like a chameleon.
Yeah, you don't realize what youth is until you don't have it.
You can never really judge your work because once it's done, it's done.
You cannot watch yourself dispassionately.
You don't plan, but you know that certain lines hold immense power and immense depth, and you just hope that you're going to put what is needed behind the words.
You just don't have to listen to all those personal insults from everybody.
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