I generally don`t make films to entertain people. I choose the parts that challenge me to break through my own barriers. A need to devour, punish, humiliate, or surrender seems to be a primal part of human nature, and it`s certainly a big part of sex. To discover what normal means, you have to surf a tide of weirdness.

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.

There are now different subjects coming up for us older women that certainly didn`t before. Of course, sexuality and sensuality have always been forms that film is obsessed with, but it used to be a form for younger women because, well, they were much prettier, but now directors and audiences are using it to explore older women - it may not be quite so pretty but my God that won`t stop me from investigating it.

European films were what it was about for me - the sensations I needed, the depth, the storytelling, the characters, the directors, and the freedom that you can`t really find in American films.

A film based on a jolly good John Grisham book is fine, but I like to get a bit under the skin.

To grieve is something extremely difficult, we don`t even know how to begin to grieve, and I don`t know how you can be taught to grieve.

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.

You can never really judge your work because once it`s done, it`s done.

There`s an awful lot of pressure around the idea of a woman growing older and therefore losing that potential of being desirable, and that puts women into a situation where they feel almost embarrassed about the fact they don`t have the kind of bodies that young women have, or they don`t have the kind of sexual attraction that seems to go with a younger stage of their life. What does that mean, the fact that you`re older? It means that you`re not going to have the same kind of relationships you had when you were younger. I think we have to reinvent from a woman`s point of view another way of being.

I did that film just so I could kiss Robert Redford.

If words don`t have vibration behind them, and a real feeling behind them, then they`re just words.

Training is fabulous because it gives you a basis, a strong structure, so that when you`re unbelievably nervous and you think that you can`t get a word out, you will get the word out.

I am fascinated by the whole process of what it`s like to be alive, whether it`s unbelievably uncomfortable and horrible or whether it`s quite nice.

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.

I think that most actors don`t have very good opinions of themselves.

You cannot watch yourself dispassionately.

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.

Doing cinema is not about watching yourself.

Quite often in life, when a tragic event arrives it becomes a springboard for mirroring all other things in one`s life that one hasn`t come to terms with.

I think you have to earn beauty. You can use it or abuse it however you want when you`re young. It`s a God-given gift. You have a visiting card - you can go into any room and someone will come and talk to you. But I`ve always thought from very early on that you have to be careful with that - not being vain or narcissistic. Have fun, but don`t be obsessed with it.

"I had fun before, but if you can have fun the way I have when I`m nearly 60, that`s quite interesting. If you don`t worry about getting wrinkled and all that, and you just allow yourself to feel good, then maybe it`s because your time has come."

"I`m just amazed. I`m glad to be alive, because I know what it`s like not to want to be here, and glad that young directors want to put me in fantastic films. So say no more."

"I didn`t allow myself to have fun for a very long time, for all sorts of reasons. What`s happened now is that I`ve lived through that, and I`ve come to a point where I can say that. I can feel happy too!"

"Oh, directors want me to be really stern sometimes. They like that quality in a woman. They find it compelling."

"Difficult acting with a chimp? No, no. The emotions were the same. In a way it was like playing opposite Paul Newman. The chimpanzee reacted differently, that`s all."

"I`d rather be thought of like that than to play Mary Poppins." -- Charlotte Rampling, in response to her tendency toward playing villainess roles