First of all, I had the desire for that format [silent movie], and then when I was talking to people, I felt that people needed justification. Why are you doing a silent movie? Is it just for your own pleasure? I felt it was not enough for them so I realized I have to choose the subject that will make things easier for them and to tell the story of a silent actor makes sense for doing a silent movie.

The Germans were much more graphical. The expressionism is much more than cinema. It was a movement with artists, painters, music and architecture, so it's really graphic and visual. And the French were something else.

I can say is usually people are slightly confused. They think that silent movies are old. But, the fact is, they are old because they have been made in the '20s. That's the thing that makes them old. Not the format. The format is just a format. It's not an old format.

Usually, when you do a period movie, you just recreate what you are shooting. You don't recreate the way you shoot it. I think I did the same thing here as I did in the OSS 117 movies. I recreated the way to shoot that period, because to me, like what I was saying about the Steadicam, there's no sense to do a Steadicam shot in the 1920s because you have never seen the '20s like that. You can't believe there was a Steadicam in the 1920s. I believe it's a continuation of the OSS 117 in a way but without the irony.

I guess George Clooney would be a wonderful silent actor, and Leonardo DiCaprio is such a wonderful actor he certainly could do it.

I guess all the directors in France are influenced by Hitchcock, because he's the perfect visual director, in my eyes.

There are two kinds of audiences. There's the ones who were in the theaters, and the ones who are outside and we want them to come inside the theater. And, it's not the same.