Even in the very beginning when she would bump into George Valentine and people would start taking pictures of her, she never thought "I'm with George Valentine. I need to get a picture with him." She's like "oh that's funny. Everyone's taking pictures!"
A character is never entirely white or black, there's never entirely right or wrong. You have to realize sometimes you face something, and then you change your mind, or then you realize you were wrong.
As an actor, you think you have to go really far and deep and cry and yell to be good in a scene. Sometimes that's not the point.
Sometimes we had to improvise. I hate to improvise because I felt like I couldn't find words.
I read Gloria Swanson's autobiography just because I wanted to know what it was like in the time.
Marlene Dietrich for the way there was something so unique about her - the way she entered into a frame and everybody looks at her and the way she winks and looks up.
I tried to find a character and how I would be an American actress in the 30s. But if this was a talking movie [The Artist], I'm sure she would be exactly the same for me.
I guess I'm the perfect young lead actress. I'm not Chloe Sevigny - I'm not really a character actress. Some actors have "character" faces.
My parents were not pushy or anything like that. I think my mom was still expecting me to be an astronaut, but now she is very happy that I'm not doing that.
Of course, when you work on a character, you try to understand her. You feel that everything she does has a reason.
In France, it's always about life, normal life. We always stick with these realistic things. So when French people are dreaming about American movies, they go and see the thrillers, and Westerns, and science fiction, huge entertaining movies.
Right now I'm the most famous silent movie actress in the world and I want to keep that for me. So I hope there's not going to be any other silent movies.
I'm okay. Nobody's bothering me. Everyone's very kind, and very polite. I don't feel like my whole life changed.
I really enjoyed being Peppy Miller. She was an amazing character and her energy followed me everywhere. When I talk about her I want to be her again.
Maybe I'll put my iPod in two minutes before. But truly, I've listened to actors say that they loved to listen to music before a shot, and I really understand that now because it puts you in the mood and gives you energy.
I think the approach of the character for us is the same in a silent movie as in a talking movie because we had balance, we had lines to learn.
Here, you go to the supermarket and you have wipes to clean your hands before shopping. No, we don't have that in France, but we recycle.
I spent hours on the internet looking at how glamorous actresses winked and how they would put their hand on their waist, and I was told to look at how they would walk in a room and how her body takes place of everything.
I connected very much with all the work of Joan Crawford because she started as a flapper. She used to dance and sing and she was very cute. She had something that was so different from what she is at the end of her life and she started in the silent movies and then went into the talkies.
For us, as actors, and even for the director, it gave us a sense of authenticity to what we were doing because we were talking about Hollywood and we were in Hollywood.
Ever since the movie premiered at Cannes, I've had a sudden surge of scripts and interest.
The difference between the extras here and in France is the French extras read books. Actually, they hide the book and pretend that they're acting. Here (in Hollywood), you can see everybody wants his break.
People recognize me, I have scripts, and auditions. And I meet great people.
I feel very honored and special really. You can't imagine, to arrive at the Oscars when you arrive so low, and you can't go further than the Oscars.
