When you direct your first film, you always start by telling stories that you are familiar with.

I`m a good storyteller.

It is something actresses need to go through and I think they look forward to being naked in a movie. I don`t know why, but it is something you need to exhaust from yourself.

I just heard a very funny story about somebody who died yesterday, I`m sorry to say so but it was so absurd that you can`t help laughing. And the person that was concerned about that story was laughing too.

What I am interested in is the present time.

And I think it`s very rare to have good stories, well written comedies.

So, sometimes, when I`m not happy with my performance and I have to think, I will think in English.

Words, yes, formulating things, creating something from your heart, it is something very necessary, yes.

Mel Gibson would not be a good James Bond.

You can perform all kind of characters but you cannot change what people feel for you.

But the privileges that one has enjoyed and exploited can sometimes turn against you: nobody thinks of you as a director, you are always an actress.

To be honest I don`t really know because I really didn`t care when I was writing about mixing up reality with what was not reality.

Genre aside, I`d like to make a film about people.

I have been making films for the last 25 years and have played characters created and inspired by others, and I often enjoyed myself doing that.

Well it is sometimes difficult to act in another language.

Even if I think in English, it`s more a language of acting than French.

What`s nice is that when you have to put a wig on, funny costumes, You know it`s like being a little girl playing with accessories.

I think it`s almost easier to make people cry than to make people laugh.

There is no doubt that this film is autobiographical, but at the same time it also tries to portray an ordinary couple in a language that everyone can understand.

You know I could stop working as an actress and still be doing promotion on movies I did ten years ago. And I don`t like to do the same thing forever.

When you work with a director like this you don`t have a real challenge because he makes the work very easy. He knows what he wants as a director.

You know French means like sophisticated, well educated, so far.

I find the subject of childhood fascinating. I explored this subject in Speak to me of love and I am curious about portraying the often painful transition into the adult world.

Oh, I`m not English, I cannot talk on behalf of an English person. I`m French. I can say about French. They are quite emotional, though, and they talk about their emotions.

As you know it is a comedy so everything is a little bit pushed. That`s what`s funny about this kind of movie is you can laugh about the absurdity, and the bad side of life.

Sometimes you choose the wrong actor, he could be the best actor ever, but he`s not cast in the right part then it doesn`t work.

It is personal, very honest, intimate, I would say, but sometimes the story, the anecdote, can be more or less mine - or not mine.

And that`s how you have to be smart, is are you believable in this part or aren`t you believable. And it has nothing to do with your talent.

And that`s how the world, I think, imagines French women you know like very womanly and seducing men and that`s how they like to imagine them.

"It`s so attractive, too attractive. Your writing becomes more real than your reality. Acting is contained - you act for three months, then leave it - but writing is the act of creation. Writing is dangerous." After writing her semi- autobiographical novel Telling Lies, published in 2001.

"What is he, 13 or 11? Perhaps I could play his nanny." Upon hearing Leonardo DiCaprio is a big fan.

I hate those kisses, you know, American kisses, with the tongues out. They`re disgusting. I can`t look, it`s like porno!

I need the seasons to live to the rythm of rain and sun. In town, It`s like you can hardly make the difference between night an day.

Acting is wonderful therapy for people. Instead of suffering for yourself, someone will do it for you.