The body, in 'La Belle Noiseuse,' was the source of the artist's creativity.

We've all had that fear, that despair of losing someone, or this fierce desire because it's not reciprocated. The less reciprocation there is, the more desire we have.

I have no TV, thank God. I haven't heard anything about Tom Cruise, except that he had a baby, I think.

I started acting without any vocation. I continued out of love.

You may think of me as an object of desire and I'm going to tell you that I can be in front of you naked and not be erotic.

I give everything I have to give on the screen. I feel I don't owe the public anything else.

Once I opened my eyes to the realities of life, I couldn't close them.

When you are happy and in love and when you have children, then maybe you are beautiful.

I have never had so much fun as in Montreal. I taught the kids French, I baby-sat, I went to school, I was a receptionist at a hairdresser's, I danced and drank all night. I found that the more you do, the more you have time to do... it's weird, non?

I stay in France. Better to be the queen of a village than a servant in a kingdom.

I had my mouth done when I was 27. It was a botched job. Obviously, if I had liked my mouth I wouldn't have had it re-done.

My parents sent me to Montreal because I kept getting kicked out of school in France.

If I have one thing perfect, it's my eyebrows. And my feet. I love my feet. They're like Japanese feet. The rest I would like to hide. Especially my freckles. I feel ridiculous.

In Hollywood there's no real material. They would send me stuff, but I hadn't even seen the director. If I don't see the director's eyes, I'm not going. I'm not even going to pack my bags.

I can't just react on the strength of an email and three pages of synopsis, and say I'm going to take off for three months of my life.

I don't give a damn about Hollywood.

It is not easy to grow old in this business, when you are a woman above all, in the cinema.

It is not easy to age in harmony with one's roles.

I am an actress, I earn money, I am well-known. I don't think it is altruism to become engaged in humanitarian work. It's the least one can do.

Often, when you see yourself on the screen, you feel like a sweater that's been put through the washing machine. You have the impression of having done something full and luminous, and suddenly, when you see it on the screen, it's turned back into a tiny little thing.

There are moments when you feel that the desire to work is fading, and the only way to bring it back is to get away from it, to put yourself in a state of frustration so you feel the need again.

Very often with an American movie, the end is very happy and you just feel good when you go out. When you go to a French movie, it's kind of like, oh!, and you can't go out; you're stuck in your chair. It goes so deeply inside of the heart.

I was a very bad student. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn't want to go farther in school. I hated school and was always the bad one; I was always insulting the teachers.

There are a lot of films where I play characters that are about the windows to the interior person rather than the exterior.

For me, I don't feel it is a success in the career to be the pretty woman; career success comes from being characters who tell us something about the truth.

I dream about singing. I would love to sing and write.

I played football when I was little. I didn't want to be an actress at all, I wanted to be a majorette in an Australian circus. That was my ambition.

I'm less desperate now to express what's inside me, that's true - I act these days because it keeps me awake and interested, an eternal student.

I don't see my old films, but I think of the characters I played as friends, like the women I meet in my life who made strong impressions on me. I remember them and they are part of me.

I am a voyager - and the voyage cannot mean that I stay at home.

My looks mean nothing to me. If anything, they are a hindrance.