Film is an editor's medium. You can create very good raw material and they can make it horrible, or you can do not so well and they can make it beautiful. You don't really know.

It's fair to say that if you have a lot of experience, your power is greater. You have more of an opportunity to roll up your sleeves with younger directors.

I'm more interested in talking about what I do. And I don't think people are interested in my personal life. I've never had a Hollywood life. I've always been a worker. But it's true: If you know something about a person outside of the movie that is really repulsive to you, it's hard to shake. So I prefer to do my speaking through the work. I don't want people to know anything about me, because that's not important. I'm more interested in the me that takes shape through these characters. The other stuff is personal and too easy to trivialize out of context.

When I give over to somebody's vision rather than have an idea of what I need to do, it takes me to places I wouldn't have got to by myself. I'm always attracted to a strong director.

Mounting those red stairs [in Cannes] is something I've done with a very different intention many times. So it's interesting any time you witness those shifts of perspective. The beach scenes were also fun. It felt very strange and very theatrical to kind of commandeer it and have La Mer booming over the speakers.

Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.

Each of the actors is quite different, but they're all living in the same world.