'The English Patient' was a huge turning point in my career and my life; it became this huge thing. But the whole Oscar build-up got completely out of control; I spent more time talking about that film than I spent making it!

I love shooting French films because I don't have to stick with being sophisticated or stuck-up.

Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months.

People will now go to films with subtitles, you know. They're not afraid of them. It's one of the upsides of text-messaging and e-mail. Maybe the only good thing to come of it.

The problem with being a film actress or a movie star is that people see you so huge that somehow you're visually massive or somehow you're in some removed space, which is a television or wherever. It somehow takes your humanity.

I am so bored with seeing stories about a mature man of 65 falling in love with a beautiful girl of 32.

Films are just consumables.