It was very liberating to be able to sing in English. It had a different resonance, different images. It was like being a stranger in a foreign land, which was helpful.

In France I'm very private, I don't like talking about my life, and I imagined that people would think that I'm now an open book.

Maybe, in the back of my head, I'm thinking I have to do as much as I can. It'll stop.

It rarely happens that I get to work again with the same director. I had such a wonderful time on Antichrist with Lars von Trier, that I was going to do whatever he proposed me to do. When he sent me the script of Christmas, I just loved it. I think I love anything he writes.

I was very attached to my family when my father died. I was 19. I was about to go live with my father right when he died, so it was very intense.

Wanting to do it was much more powerful than the fright.

I felt that people would criticize everything. I was so scared about playing Paris. I was very much aware that the greatest concerts my father and mother had done were there. I was sure people would be very tough.