Cinema d'auteur, cinema about people, about emotions. About la difficulté d'être, the difficulty of being, existential problems. That's what the nouvelle vague is. The early '60s was all about that.
French women have been made beautiful by the French people - they're very aware of their bodies, the way they move and speak, they're very confident of their sexuality. French society's made them like that
One of the reasons I don't see eye to eye with Women's Lib is that women have it all on a plate if only they knew it. They don't have to be pretty either.
I must explore desert ground and see what can grow. But there are limits. I know in my heart what I would never do.
I think that most actors don't have very good opinions of themselves
You become more and more charged with your life and with a life that you're observing. When I was younger, I was actually looking forward to getting older, to have more insight, more understanding. I'm much more tolerant with others and with myself. I'm not in rebellion all the time, I'm not angry so much. But all those feelings are really useful [when you're young] because they fire us, as long as they don't get out of control.
Because one has the animal instinct to seek out the people that suits one - you see people that go on life's journeys and get muddled along the way. If you look at their lives they've always gone with the wrong people... can you say it's the wrong people - I don't know.
When I take on something, I take the whole thing on. It's not even a question of separating, "Oh, am I going to be naked?" If you know you have to do something in life, for me, I go with my whole person.
The process of filmmaking is very musical, you get into the rhythm and the rhythmics of how someone is, especially with Woody Allen who is very much into body language and body movement.
A lot of young actors will do a scene and then run off and look at themselves. I don't believe in that at all
Doing cinema is not about watching yourself
I did that film just so I could kiss Robert Redford.
I'd had a French education for three years, my father being in the army. From 9 to 12, I went to French school. I've been sort of part of the culture, part of the geography, since I was quite young - the imprint was there. And I loved it.
I got the O.B.E because I represent England outside of England more...but thinking of me as an actor, I haven't done all the classical theatre, all the great roles. Think of Helen Mirren and me. Helen, who I adore, is a friend - should be Dame. I am the rebel, the revolutionary on the side.
I've lived through deaths in my family and I've lived through separations in my family so those are the big ones. Those are the ones that press the biggest buttons in human beings' lives.
Close girlfriends I don't have necessarily, as an actress. Perhaps there is a thing of competition there, you know, when you're doing the same things, and you're the same age. I could be with younger actors, but woman of my age probably - there is and there isn't, one doesn't like to think of it, but I think there is a sense of competition. Which is good, also.
A film based on a jolly good John Grisham book is fine, but I like to get a bit under the skin
I felt very special in Paris, more special than I felt in London. I love London for different reasons. I've always been close to London, being English. But somehow there's something special about living as an Englishwoman in Paris.
I regret not having enough training, I trained for a year at The Royal Court, but I very quickly went off to do films and television.
The '60s in London obviously brought about the explosion of music, the Beatles especially, and then the Rolling Stones and other forms of music, and then fashion and photography and films - kitchen-sink dramas we called them at that time, which was our nouvelle vague in Britain, films that talk about real life.
I know a lot about fear in itself, and lived with fear a lot. Lived with anxiety a lot, lived with the things that - most human beings, at some stage in their lives, are going to live with these feelings.
We can never know... But maybe it's because no black actors merited being nominated.Why put people into categories?
You don't need the painful memories, because either you've resolved them. Denying always makes them want to come back. Denial is a mechanism that doesn't work. But allowing them to come back in little by little, those memories, you can begin to be quite comfortable with them, and it's even nice to have that as part of the map of your life.
