110 quotes found
"I am full of doubts ... Each new film is like a trial. Before I step in front of the camera, I do not know whether I am going to fall or whether I am going to fly — and that is exactly the way I want it to stay."
"I think the characters I play go through tunnels, like in Three Colours : Blue, for example, where she’s lost everything ... In The English Patient, she loses her best friend; this patient is dying in front of her – there’s no hope, so she’s going to start from the bottom. In films we see extremes, because it’s where you have turning points. Before I thought there was a common denominator between my films — as if all my characters were sisters – but I’m not so sure now."
"I try to see my films just once. It's like a dream you've been through when it's been intense, and you just have to go through it once more just to make sure you've had it."
"Quand même"
"Once the curtain is raised, the actor ceases to belong to himself. He belongs to his character, to his author, to his public. He must do the impossible to identify himself with the first, not to betray the second, and not to disappoint the third. And to this end the actor must forget his personality and throw aside his joys and sorrows. He must present the public with the reality of a being who for him is only a fiction. With his own eyes, he must shed the tears of the other. With his own voice, he must groan the anguish of the other. His own heart beats as if it would burst, for it is the other's heart that beats in his heart. And when he retires from a tragic or dramatic scene, if he has properly rendered his character, he must be panting and exhausted."
"Me pray? Never! I'm an atheist."
"Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."
"Acting is all internal, but must be externalized."
"Victor Hugo could not promise without keeping his word. He was not like me: I promise everything with the firm intention of keeping my promises, and two hours after I have forgotten all about them. If any one reminds me of what I have promised, I tear my hair, and to make up for my forgetfulness I say anything, I buy presents — in fact, I complicate my life with useless worries. It has always been thus, and always will be so."
"My fame had become annoying for my enemies, and a little trying, I confess, for my friends. But at that time all this stir and noise amused me vastly. I did nothing to attract attention. My somewhat fantastic tastes, my paleness and thinness, my peculiar way of dressing, my scorn of fashion, my general freedom in all respects, made me a being quite apart from all others. I did not recognise the fact. I did not read, I never read, the newspapers. So I did not know what was said about me, either favourable or unfavourable. Surrounded by a court of adorers of both sexes, I lived in a sunny dream."
"Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrity when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves. They are at the beginning of a series of small worries, thunderbolts hidden under flowers, but they know how to hold in check that monster advertisement. It is a sort of octopus with innumerable tentacles. It throws out to right and left, in front and behind, its clammy arms, and gathers in, through its thousand little suckers, all the gossip and slander and praise afloat, to spit out again at the public when it is vomiting its black gall. But those who are caught in the clutches of celebrity at the age of twenty two know nothing."
"I am so superstitious that if I had arrived when there was no sunshine I should have been wretched and most anxious until after my first performance. It is a perfect torture to be superstitious to this degree, and, unfortunately for me, I am ten times more so now than I was in those days, for besides the superstitions of my own country, I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me. I cannot walk a single step or make any movement or gesture, sit down, go out, look at the sky or ground, without feeling some reason for hope or despair, until at last, exasperated by the trammels put upon my actions by my thought, I defy all superstitions and just act as I want to act."
"Life is short, even for those who live a long time, and we must live for the few who know and appreciate us, who judge and absolve us, and for whom we have the same affection and indulgence. The rest I look upon as a mere crowd, lively or sad, loyal or corrupt, from whom there is nothing to be expected but fleeting emotions, either pleasant or unpleasant, which leave no trace behind them. We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget."
"Chicago people are very fond of Madame Bernhardt. They want her to get a divorce and settle down with them."
"There are five kinds of actresses: bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses— and then there is Sarah Bernhardt"
"She is the Muse of Poetry herself. Neither intelligence nor artistry have anything to do with it. She is guided by a secret instinct. She recites as the nightingale sings, as the wind sighs, as water murmurs, as Lamartine once wrote."
"A symphony of golden flutes and muted strings; silver dawn lit by lambent lightnings, soft stars and a clear-cut crescent moon."
"Obviously I think I've been very lucky, to start off with such a good break, and to have a film that not only was a hit but where I didn't have to compromise … in terms of doing a mindless movie — it was also a movie, for me as an actor which was very fulfilling…"
"I wanted to kind of make sure that people know that I'm here to stay, because this is home, and I am born here — I'm not a foreigner in that sense."
"I think the chemistry we have is that we both think very dark when it comes to stories."
"It's all a part of this world where we're all kind of mixing a lot, and… in that way we're all a bit confused about who we are, where we belong, where's home, and … who is important to us…"
"Enter Chanda, the multilingual call girl who can seduce in Hindi, Tamil, English and French. With her bee-stung lips, unusual face and refreshing lack of acting guile, Kalki Koechlin imbues the part with a touching fragility."
"Dev.D is a tryst with milestone cinema, reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann's Shakespeare-shaken-and-stirred in Romeo and Juliet. Kashyap, however, gets even more adventurous and adds a progressive flourish to both the plot and the characters which are played to perfection by the three lead players. If Mahi and Kalki are riveting new finds, assured of a long innings in cinema, then Abhay Deol adds a whole new meaning to the term "Unconventional Hero"."
"The clown company played by Atul Kumar, Kalki Koechlin, Sujay Saple, Neil Bhoopalam, Namit Das and Puja Sarup are outstanding in their role[s]. This is just outstanding casting by the director and The Company Theatre."
"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."
"I am a follower of hyaluronic acid – always in small doses of course – to fill wrinkles and fine lines."
"The newspapers were saying, 'You have AIDS.' They actually said I was dead. I just threw myself into my work when the whispering campaign turned really ugly. I think Camille saved me. I felt incredibly paranoid, just as Camille did. And do you know? I was able to use that in doing Camille's scenes. It made them better."
"A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point."
"I have been very happy, very rich, very beautiful, much adulated, very famous, and very unhappy."
"All these animals are put in cages, never see the sun or grass, and they leave this hell only to go to the slaughter-house. For me intensive breeding is a sign of human degeneration. If one can find that acceptable, then we humans have lost all moral value. ... [How long have you been a vegetarian?] Since 1962, when I went on French television to denounce conditions of animal slaughter. That is when I became aware of the horror of factory farming, live transports and the killings of farm animals. I have always been sensitive to animal distress but from then on I refused to be involved in such inhuman industrial deaths."
"I don’t believe in doing everything and being mediocre at all of them. I believe in being good at one thing."
"Quand on dit "je t'aime", on veut dire "aime-moi"."
"Je n'étais pas une femme, mais une industrie de la chanson."
"Je crois que mon rêve a toujours été de devenir quelqu'un. De réussir dans la vie, dans le spectacle, je ne savais pas exactement quoi, mais c'était ou chanter ou jouer la comédie, ou faire du cinéma ou du théâtre... c'était le spectacle."
"J'ai traversé la vie sans la regarder. Je sais ce qu'est ma vie. Mon mari, c'est le public. Les chansons, ce sont mes enfants."
"La vie m'est insupportable, pardonnez-moi."
"I don't care when I was born, if I'm 50, 60 or 70. It's important that I am alive."
"I hate to spread rumours: but what else can one do with them?"
"I'd grown up thinking I was ugly, ugly, ugly. I was much too tall, I was much too skinny, I was flat-chested, I had my mother's Asian eyes and cheekbones so I looked foreign compared to all my girlfriends, my mouth was too big and my teeth were too big so I never smiled. And then Françoise Hardy had her breakthrough in France and everything suddenly changed. Before her you were supposed to look like Brigitte Bardot, blonde, curvy and busty. But I was about twenty when people started telling me "You know what, you look a little like Françoise Hardy, you could be a model" and then out of the blue this famous woman, the great Catherine Harlé turns up. By sheer accident she happened to see me in the street in Paris and asked me if I wanted to be a fashion model and I thought she was joking! And she said "No, no, no, you're exactly the type of girl we're looking for" and all of a sudden all of these flaws, all the things I'd been so ashamed of, became my greatest assets. By sheer accident, as most things in my career."
"I knew nothing when I first met him. He taught me to see things through his eyes. Dalí was my teacher. He let me use his brushes, his paint and his canvas, so that I could play around while he was painting for hours and hours in the same studio. Surrealism was a good school for me. Listening to Dalí talk was better than going to any art school."
"In Italy I'm big because they're all so sex-obsessed. In Germany I succeeded because they've been waiting for someone like Marlene Dietrich to come along ever since the war. I played on their need for a drunken, nightclubbing vamp. And I've won the gays, who are crucial because they have all the best discos, entirely because of the extraordinary legends about me."
"The Germans told me "We're going to conquer the world!" and I don't regret working with a German record company at all, because for my career it was great, but they wanted to control me, direct me and restrict me. They wanted absolute discipline and that's not the life for me, so after a few years of that I wanted out."
"People only know me as a celebrity and don't realize how much more important art is to me than makeup and set costumes. Show business pays the rent, but painting is my only true passion, so I define myself as a painter who works in show business. Art is a kind of therapy to me, thanks to which I can interpret my feelings. An empty canvas before my eyes is synonymous with the absolute freedom of expression."
"Compilations, to me, are embarrassing. To bring out a compilation, to me, is to say, "Look. I've got no new material so please buy this. I need money to pay the rent." I think it's very embarrassing. And that is very annoying because the record company owns all those titles and they don't ask me for my advice. They just decide to release "the best of" compilations and they put out a lot of very bad quality music. There are a couple of good titles but the rest are just tracks to fill out the album. And they know very well that they can't rely on me promoting them because I won't promote such records."
"I try not to think that I am acting, but that I am the person. And instead of giving the audience your fantasies completely, I think it is more interesting to give them a place where they can imagine things instead of knowing everything; but maybe that is very French."
"There is no such thing as a Hollywood career for a French actress today. You can come here and do films like Juliette Binoche, but you can't come here and have a career. It's because you don’t sign with studios anymore. I remember when I did Umbrellas of Cherbourg, I signed a contract with Fox. At the time, actresses would be proposed different scripts because they had to use you. Sure it had some inconvenience, but actors made films they might not ever make if they weren't under contract. Now, only individual producers choose and actors are left on their own."
"I think that women who have to deal with a big amount of people have to compartmentalize themselves. You have to have an attitude of strength in a way because you are supposed to direct and organize the life of people in that way, aloof. It doesn't mean much, it's just an attitude."
"When you're not working and you're just living, you forget and all of a sudden something happens to remind you that you're an actor. I'm not always the nicest person to meet, because I forget very easily that I'm an actress when I'm not working. I live very normally, I go out with my friends, we go to the movies, I queue, we go to restaurants. Then if something happens to remind me that I'm an actress then I become a little different and things become a little heavy. I like the advantages; I know it's not right but I like being famous when it's convenient for me and completely anonymous when it's not."
"I can be very critical on myself and on other people; when I work, I can be very demanding. But to direct... I admire directors so much, I find them incredible: they manage such a huge number of people of different characters, think of the money involved. And they have to make decisions all the time, they have to answer all the time. I think it's incredible. No, no, I wouldn't be able to do that. I imagine that you have to forget about what the project represents sometimes because otherwise you become a monster. It's incredible the amount of responsibility and power you have. I wouldn't want that."
"It's the social networks that prevent people from dreaming any more about stars. Their private life is displayed constantly on social networks; and some even post private pictures of themselves. I find it a pity. Being a star entails glamour and secrecy; it's hard to keep any degree of mystery nowadays."
"[On wearing clothes made by the Yves Saint Laurent brand] You are more aware of what you wear. You feel totally different. When you live in public, it gives you an attitude that helps you be confident with people you don’t know."
"There's a very big challenge in the United States when it comes to ageing, especially for actors and actresses. I'm not saying it's easy in Europe, but in Europe we accept more readily to make movies with women in leading roles who are 40, 45, 50 years old. That is still very rarely seen in the US."
"I think it's very tiring to be Catherine Deneuve each day"
"It was a film about character but also about actresses too, and she is the most important French actress for 50 years. When she accepted, it was very easy to build a cast around her."
"She's not an icon in life. She knows things, and she's very clever. I think she's very shy. She tries to protect herself a lot."
"Catherine Deneuve seems to have been made for cinema, and cinema for her. She IS French cinema. She seems to be getting more adventurous every year."
"I'd like to be an American Catherine Deneuve. She plays beautiful, sensitive, deep parts with a little bit of intelligence behind them."
"I started to watch the ocean. I was not looking at it like I used to; it became like a grave."
"As a mixed [-race] girl, there’s always a visible and invisible side of you; there’s a place you inhabit and place you desert,” she says. “How does the place that you don’t live in influence you?"
"My family history is made of migration; it’s something that’s part of my own complexity."
"When I started writing the script, I realized that I hadn’t really seen any film with a black couple that was worthy of Romeo and Juliet…And through Ada and Souleiman I wanted to relate a similar kind of tragic love, in the age of rampant capitalism."
"When I decided to make the film ['], I knew that it was going to be hard. I think I wanted that. I wanted to see how it was to go this far. […] Of course it was kind of humiliating sometimes, I was feeling like a prostitute. […] Kechiche] was using three cameras, and when you have to fake your orgasm for six hours... I can't say that it was nothing. But for me it is more difficult to show my feelings than my body."
"I came to the showroom to show pictures, and [Coco Chanel] said, “Okay, we’ll make a test to see if you can do it.” I was a little girl—about 17-and-a-half—and so I went into the makeup room and I did my makeup, and my hair, and the eyes to get them a little bit bolder. This woman came in with a big hat, she was 66 or 65 or something like that, but very beautiful! Kind of militaire. She said, “What is your name little girl?” I was talking to the makeup lady, and said, “My name is Hanne Karin Bayer.” She said, “Hanne Karin Bayer? And you want to be an actress? You’ve got to call yourself Anna Karina.” And I said, “Oh that sounds good, thank you, Madame.” Afterwards everybody told me it was Coco Chanel. Two weeks later I got my photo on the cover of Elle magazine and I really got work. That was a big honor at the time, and they called me “Anna Karina,” but they spelled it the wrong way in the beginning, with a “C,” the Italian way."
"We did not see ourselves as remaking cinema at the time, at least not in my view. Myself and the other actors were not part of the industry; we weren’t inside the star system. We were running around, shooting in the streets, hiding behind trees to do our makeup. It was a very simple way of working."
"As soon as we were happy, he tried to get at us by another means, another path. He provoked a new ordeal. One could have thought that it bored him, happiness."
"Lots of resistance. People really didn’t like it. ‘What is she doing here? This is not her job, she should stay being an actress.’ But I just wanted to see if I could do it, that’s all. And I wrote novels. And did singing – two albums, or did I say that already?"
"I like the earlier [Jean-Luc Godard films] better. The earlier ones are human, the later ones abstract. Like Cubist paintings – not so fun. One day in Los Angeles, I went to a museum and paid $25 and what did I see? White cubes! What’s going on? I go back to the ticket booth and said: ‘I want my money back. I don’t want to look at white cubes.’"
"Serge savait ce qu'il voulait, perfectionniste, on a beaucoup répété, on se parlait même en verlan. Je me suis rarement autant amusée avec un homme, nous étions très complices."
"J'imaginais que j'allais voyager avec des gitans et que j'allais chanter dans la rue. Un peu comme Piaf. Je connaissais toutes les chansons des chanteuses réalistes, Damia, Berthe Sylva, Fréhel. Je me rappelle aussi que je voulais me marier avec Louis Armstrong"
"Si j'écris mon histoire, c'est telle que je l'ai vécue. Je dis toujours la vérité. Je ne vais ni enjoliver ni noircir le tableau."
"She left me because of my many faults; I left her because I couldn’t talk movies with her."
"It really looks like it's real. You really feel like a little girl. Discovering all these things, is magic."
"Half the time, I live under [the guise of] my characters, so if I start to create an ‘official character’ for myself, it would be exhausting."
"It’s beautiful when you have the opportunity to change from a completely inward role to a very organic, present role."
"I don't even wish it on my worst enemy, if I have one. It's horrible, dengue. It is something that strikes you down. You have thoughts of suicide, outright."
"We have become accustomed to the horror images of this country, but when I return I find that there is God everywhere all over Rwanda,"
"Rwanda is a country which is stable, unified, clean, at peace and resolutely turned towards economic development after 1995 Genocide against Tutsi."
"I’ve been inspired by the fact that I’m Rwandan. We left this country in bad conditions. This is my way of contributing towards national development."
"I hope it’s going to help children to develop their inner talents, the idea was to turn this centre which used to serve as an orphanage into something useful for the children."
"It’s a big pleasure and honor to be among the judges to select Miss France 2021 and I will be celebrating 20 years since I was crowned Miss France 2000 ."
"Thanks to the team of Ruhengeri Referral Hospital for having me and congratulations for the achievement ."
"MY COUNTRY of origin is called Rwanda ."
"On May 7, I’m going to vote against Marine Le Pen because I love my country France ."
"A country which is stable, unified, clean, at peace and resolutely turned towards economic development ."
"In 2000 after winning the Miss France crown, I received over 2000 letters of insults and death threats from supporters of FN, because to them I did not represent France ."
"In 2002 I made a choice between Chirac and Le Pen on second round of presidential elections ."
"We are in 2017, the face seems more likeable, the communication more treated while the smile that accompanies the campaign promises of more social, making us believe that it will be the voice ‘of the people ."
"I joined the beauty competition to enable me to be become an actress. I began as Miss Bourgogne in 2000 and three months later I became Miss France."
"But we all know that in real sense, the FN idealists supporters are always so stinking and are hungry of power much as they are quite a big number than before."
"I was like everyone who thinks about their career, I thought it would derail me. I am not married but I have two children. Family is everything and my kids have made me stronger."
"I have a boyfriend who is a director and actor. For now our lives are our biggest project."
"When I was in my 20s, I thought that being known for 'Swimming Pool' was kind of a burden. Like, 'OK, everyone thinks I am this tanned bimbo,' and I was having problems coping with that image."
"Being a mum makes you more aware of how short life is and how important it is to enjoy every minute because you have less time for yourself. A day doesn't have 24 hours any more - it only lasts 10, or eight. So you learn to get rid of all the parasites. I'm not talking about people, but things that could be toxic for happiness."
"I love that friendship. I love many characters in The Walking Dead but Carol’s character is one of the strongest feminine characters in the history of TV. We discover a woman completely traumatized by her husband in the first season. Just crying the whole time. And we see her in Season 11 just so strong."
"Femininity of today is the one who does not feel guilty of his desires, whatever they are."
"“I would like to think those flights of mine have a small corner in the history of achievement. I always liked to say I travelled the world with a Gipsy.”"
"“When you have a dream you have to work hard to achieve that dream. Your dreams when you are young can be the force that keeps you going.”"
"I thank You, O my God, that You have given me shelter beneath your roof. Abandonment, love, trust—such is my motto."
"My name would come up from time to time, but with few alternatives in the middle of an empty space"
"This emptiness has always upset me, but it also inspired me to do this project"
"I always knew it would be a collective effort where my actress friends would share their experiences"
"They were all determined and excited to make their voices heard"
"It was time to represent blacks in French film—in under a month, we went from coauthors to a true collective"
"The book is a commercial hit in French bookstores, proving that, contrary to what some believe, the public not only wants to read what we have to say, but they share our values of inclusion and diversity"
"I would be delighted if after this book, and with the other actions we plan to take, that all communities be represented"
"The best thing would be for all talents, regardless of skin color, to have access to the same opportunities"
"We survived whitewashing, blackface, tons of dealer roles, housekeepers with a Bwana accent, we survived the roles of terrorists, all the roles of hypersexualized girls"
"We’re not going to leave French cinema alone"
"We are a family. We say everything, right? All of you who are not impacted by issues related to invisibility, stereotypes or the issue of skin color…the good news is that it will not happen without you. Think inclusion"
"What is played in French cinema does not only concern our very privileged environment, it concerns all of society"