If a man or woman has something redone it is because he or she can no longer live with that part of their body, it is no longer bearable. Either they get help and find the strength to fight or they proceed with the act.

I think my best work has been in France with great men. It's been my great fortune to work with really great men - with Olivier Assayas, Raoul Ruiz, Jacques Rivette. I am tutored by them.

Very often with an American movie, the end is very happy and you just feel good when you go out. When you go to a French movie, it's kind of like, "oh!", and you can't go out; you're stuck in your chair. It goes so deeply inside of the heart.

I don't always see my movies right away. And there are some I haven't seen at all. Sometimes that bothers the directors, so I'm obliged to see them.

I stay in France. Better to be the queen of a village than a servant in a kingdom.

I keep reading that I'm cold. But I'm not, I'm shy. And I play a lot of women of fire and sexuality like an animal - so I'm cold on one side and fiery on the other.

I give everything I have to give on the screen. I feel I don't owe the public anything else.