I didn't want to be part of that tradition of French cinema that wasn't really watched by the people of my age. I didn't really care to be in the last André Téchiné or Claude Chabrol movie, even though some of them are really interesting. For me, it was much more important to work with Mathieu Kassovitz or Gaspar Noé. It was for me a question of identity.
Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios. I still don't feel like I've been part of the stereotypical Hollywood system.
To me, Sheitan movie is the answer to all the problems we have in France concerning immigration. That is a fake problem; people can actually work together and do something very interesting out of it.
I have a huge relationship with Brazil; it's almost a love affair, I would say. And to me, to introduce that specific martial art like capoeira in Hollywood movies was something important to me.
I have a tendency to think that that stereotype of American movies and Hollywood movies doesn't exist. Of course you have the studios that have a very hard policy upon their artists, but then I haven't really been doing any real Hollywood movie yet.
I liked the idea of working with Jean Reno and Mathieu Kassovitz; there was something logical for me. I thought it was a good thing to do. Actually, The Crimson Rivers movie was a big success, and it was one of the biggest successes I ever had in France.
Steven Soderbergh really likes Irréversible, that's about all I can tell you. About the making, well, it was a very particular situation, because those people all know each other, and they're all big stars. I felt like the little French guy, really. And I was very flattered to be called on that, of course, but I felt like if I didn't find something to be a little original, different, particular in the movie, I would just disappear.
It was like a dream to me to suddenly get into the market with that kind of movie, like La Haine. It actually created my identity as an actor, that thing.
La Haine - first of all, it was the story of friendship. I was very close with Mathieu Kassovitz; he was somebody I met in the nights of Paris. And the hip-hop scene and all that... You know, it was very much about doing our own thing, and some of the subject matter was so close to what we knew and the people we were hanging out with.
People are more familiar with pictures of Jacques Mesrine that had been taken of him at the end of his life, when he was doing a lot of things with the media. So there's an iconic figure that people know, and I had to eventually get there; otherwise I guess the audience would have been disappointed. My only problem is that I'm a skinny guy, and it's very hard for me to put on weight.
You usually never know what you're going to do when you're making a movie.
I think American audiences like gangster movies. It's part of the culture.
I really like romantic comedies and light movies and everything but I think - I don't know where it comes from - but when you're doing violent movies, you're closer to reality.
I always compare human beings to animals. It's a nice way to figure out who they are.
I wanted to be an actor to act, and now, being an actor, you have to dress up, you have to be nice, you have to be smart, you have to be sexy, you have to be ready.
Coming from Paris, I'd really like to live in Rio. I think it's gotten better. It's not as violent. The economy is better. The middle class is rising.
When you have a bunch of scripts that you have to read, the less you have, the better it is, because otherwise, everything is already planned and I think that's a terrible feeling.
The thing is, as an actor, I get bored a little bit. I love to act. And between action and cuts, when you work for somebody great, it's wonderful and I still love it. The moment where you create, that instant is still magic to me. But, all the rest, I get bored with it - all the waiting, and the fact that you have to make appearances, that you have to share your life.
If the guy behind the camera is not good, the pictures are bad. It's still you, and it's the same lines and everything, but it doesn't work.
I think life is short, and you can't spend time doing things just to be on set to reassure yourself that people are not going to forget about you.
Neither of us are workaholics. I think the key thing is to accept that if you only exist through what you do, then you become what you do, and this is very wrong.
Blood, especially fake, and guns, this is bullshit. It works in the movie, but on set it doesn't work for me.
It's always interesting to see a director trying different things, and on top of it, doing it right each and almost every time.
If kids really made all the parents better, there wouldn't be crazy kids in the world.
When somebody is talking to you about something terrible on set with lines, and you believe what he says, sometimes it gives a strange vibe, because you wonder when that person is talking if he's talking about something that really happened to him and he's using the character.
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