Before I started touring, I worked with someone to help me, even physically, because I was so shy. And you can't be shy going onstage. So I had to push myself in a direction that wasn't myself.

I wish I could just accept that I'm not that good and not be shy about the fact that I'm not that professional.

I didn't want to change my personality onstage, but I still had to build some kind of ego to be able to go up there. If not, there's no point.

With a film you go with the script that's already written. And I've never thought of a project, a film that would come from my own desire. I don't think I can do it. I need someone else's desire to be able to do something. With a record, it is completely different, it's a collaboration with another artist, but I'm willing to go into intimate places with no masks on.

I wasn't getting the responses I hoped for. You can't protect yourself from other judgments.

I was very well paid for my age, and I could make choices, decide not to do a film for six months and wait until I'd get the right thing. Which made me quite a coward.

The English was really my mother, it was never me. Being the daughter of my father, I always felt very French.