You can't fool an audience with lots of bits and pieces. You have to lead them somewhere.

A film based on a jolly good John Grisham book is fine, but I like to get a bit under the skin

When I moved to Paris in the '70s, there wasn't very much going on in film in England. So when I started doing French films, there was a natural movement toward the kind of films I wanted to do. It wasn't the reason I came, but it so happened that I stepped into a time and place that actually corresponded to what I wanted. That sometimes happens in life. And it was rather beautiful.

There are moments when things just break apart and not really for very valid reasons, either. But they just change your life and make you go in different directions.

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.

Ever since I was a small child, Ive had this feeling - its in my nature, and so its not even pretentious - that if everyones going one way, I will go the other, just by some kind of spirit of defiance.

I know I have great inner strength; I always have. I can blank things out, cut people out, and I know that I can go and live in a cave on my own if necessary.