What interests me about genre is that the public connects immediately with it, it has certain rules, certain codes the audience recognizes. I can use that to create something very big.

If you look at American studios, the big productions have nothing to do with reality.

What interests me about genre is that the public connects immediately with it, it has certain rules, certain codes the audience recognizes. I can use that to create something very big.

I was the little French boy who grew up hearing people talk of De Gaulle and the Resistance. France against the Nazis! Then when that boy grew up, he began to uncover things. We began to legitimately ask the question, 'What exactly did our parents do during the Occupation?' We discovered it was not the story they were telling us.

Cool? Am I cool? I don't know, but I hope my characters are cool, in the sense of iconic. That's my job, at its very essence.

The cinema that interests me departs from realism.

I think that cinema has always progressed through exchanges.