No one has taken my heart in their hand. I haven't given it... I have lent myself, rented myself out, but never given myself.

The film was made in 1973. It was a golden time for people to experiment without risking, for example, AIDS. Today one has to be so much more careful and I don't think a character like that could exist now.

As a painter you're responsible yourself, 100 percent. In film, you have the editor, the director, the other actors. It has the advantage of not being solitary.

I am a divorced child, of divided, uncertain background. Within this division I - supposed fruit of their love - no longer exist. It happened nearly forty years ago, yet to me nothing is sadder than my parents' divorce.

Of course it's difficult to top a box office success like Emmanuelle, so it will always be my most important work. But that's nothing to be ashamed of.

No one has taken my heart in their hand. I haven't given it... I have lent myself, rented myself out, but never given myself.

I like this other world, this forgetting of myself. The actor works in order to escape, not to find himself. You become an actor by leaving yourself, and then you have to keep acting. How tragic!