“Filmmakers tell stories to explore human nature, which is always a flawed thing.”

For me, it’s important to keep a level of anonymity.

I think that sometimes in theater, I don’t prepare much beyond going to the rehearsals.

I find it weird that people want to know about you.

I reckon domesticated cats have a pretty good life.

My favorite Bond films are the really early ones, the first ones in fact, like ‘Dr. No’ and ‘From Russia with Love.’

I always feel I am in the dark. You are never finished… it is not as if you can look back and think: ah… I know what I am talking about. You are only as good as your last job and are always struggling and striving and you never quite get to where you want to be.

As an actor you have total rights to privacy and mystery, whatever your sexuality, whatever you do. I don’t see why that has to be something you discuss openly because you do something in the public eye. I have no understanding of why we turn actors into celebrities.

It’s fun to pretend you’re good at something you know you wouldn’t be good at in real life.

I was quite a shy child – not chronically, but I tended to blend into the background.

The thing I love about acting is that you can bring something very personal into the open and at the same time remain hidden because you’re always playing a character in a story that someone else has imagined. You’re always protected.

I love films. I love music. I love poetry and stories. All of that I feel… I sort of get very excited and fed by.

I can be shy, but I’m not really. I try to be better at overcoming these things people have said.

I used to collect knick-knacks, like wizards, trolls and little buddhas, and arrange them like precious things on a shelf.

I don’t think I am especially interested in celebrities, but I love talking about what is going on with people and why they do what they do.

The most amazing thing is when you find yourself watching someone in the café or something doing something weird. It’s amazing what people do, isn’t it, when you just look at them, when you take the time to look.

Dustin Hoffman also never does the same thing twice which is totally stimulating because you’re always getting something new from him. You never really know what he’s going to do next, so you have to be on your toes.

A viewer as opposed to a filmmaker might see a film differently. But I’m extremely comfortable with my style.

The story of Salome, the play itself and what it is, what it contains, and my journey as an actor, as a director, as a filmmaker, as a person struggling with whatever I’m struggling with.

I believe that it is this quality that draws people to come and see a film, and that it is the hope of attaining this quality that inspires the filmmaker to make his film in the first place.

I don’t try to make a place in history at all! People put me in the history of cinema because my first film, La pointe-courte, was so ahead of some other filmmakers.

When I started I did not know I wanted to be a filmmaker. I started – I made a film. Then when I finished I said, Oh my god it’s so beautiful – I should be a filmmaker!

Many filmmakers have made resurgent work, and I was just a little ahead of the time.

There are certain artists and filmmakers who, I get the impression, are trying to show off how bad their characters can be, how immoral their characters can be.

I’m a filmmaker, I’m a storyteller, an entertainer, if you will, so what can I do to participate?