As actors, we're always asked to portray and react to these extreme circumstances, otherwise it's not interesting. They are agonizing things to think about.
— Kristin Scott Thomas
Films are just consumables.
People will now go to films with subtitles, you know. They're not afraid of them. It's one of the upsides of text-messaging and e-mail. Maybe the only good thing to come of it.
I'm very good at forgetting people.
French is a foreign language, but I've been speaking it since I was 18 so it's second nature to me.
If anyone says, 'Let's have a girls' night out,' I will run in the opposite direction.
Having a career is a bit like navigating an Atlantic crossing - you have to make sure everything is keeping and is balanced.
I think in most jobs, you get better as you get older. You gain experience, you gain knowledge.
I do a film because I like the story and I want to give life to a character - I don't necessarily have to agree with the director.
Life is too short to live on low-fat everything.
I'm very wary of trust, you see.
Sometimes, I think I could have been a major movie star with the vast mansion and staff. I look at my Volvo and think it could be a limousine. I think of the roles I turned down. But then I wouldn't have had any children.
I'm not one of those famous people flying round the world emoting over every catastrophe. I'm too feeble.
I mean, my father was killed when I was six. And I only have tiny, tiny flashes of memory.
It's very hard having a career in different continents and two different languages.
When you make a film, you sign a contract with somebody, and it's not only legally binding but morally binding. You agree to give this man a certain number of weeks of your life, and you just go for it as much as possible. Because, whatever happens, the film is going to come out, so you might as well try very hard to make it a good one.
Most films seem to be about a man and a women falling in love at some point and once you pass forty-five, it's almost disgusting to fall in love.
The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources.
My children are lovely. They're perfect.
I used to be so intensely preoccupied by unhappiness... now there are times where you might get down, but you can move on much faster now.
'The English Patient' was a huge turning point in my career and my life; it became this huge thing. But the whole Oscar build-up got completely out of control; I spent more time talking about that film than I spent making it!
It doesn't make you feel very good being mean and fierce; it is much nicer playing people who are kind and sweet.
I don't want to have to be pretty. I don't want to have to be adorable.
I just don't see very many films. Because I make them.
The problem with being a film actress or a movie star is that people see you so huge that somehow you're visually massive or somehow you're in some removed space, which is a television or wherever. It somehow takes your humanity.
I like the idea that I'm making things that people might think and argue about.
We all come in different shapes and sizes, and that's fine by me.
I'm a bit of a Doubting Thomas - always worrying about things.
My body is a baby machine.
I'd love to do some comedy. Particularly French comedy, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms.
As a younger actor you want to be approved of, you want to gain respect, be admired. All of those things. To say: 'This is me playing this character. And aren't I fantastic!' I don't feel that so much now.
I am so bored with seeing stories about a mature man of 65 falling in love with a beautiful girl of 32.
With the theatre, your whole day is geared towards the evening's show, and that's the job. People usually go to work about 9 and come home around 5, or maybe 7.
I have a feeling I will work for a long, long time. I like it a lot... and I don't know. I just have a feeling that I'm going to be one of those people who go on for ever.
You don't choose a film because it's made by a woman, you choose it because it's good.
When I speak English, I've been told, I have this patrician way of speaking that's very irritating. It's the whole class thing.
I'm a late developer.
Exoticism can give you an edge: it makes people assume you're cleverer than you are and gives you the upper hand.
Now, playing a love interest can be really thrilling, if you're working opposite thrilling people.
I think I'm inspired mostly by other artists that aren't actors, like writers or singers or artists, for being so brave.
I think the sheer number of pop stars has kind of drowned out, somewhat, our interest. We're just submerged.
I mean, if you're being directed very precisely by somebody who has admiration and who's really smart, it's great. If you're being told what to do by a nincompoop - and luckily that hasn't happened very often - it can be very frustrating.
Baths are my favorite thing. I can have two, three a day.
Making films can be absolutely fantastic, but it can also be incredibly dull. You spend the whole day sitting by yourself in your trailer and then you get called to deliver one sentence - then you're told to come back and do it again at 5:30 the following morning.
If you are a successful actor, which is what I am, then you tend to get labelled very quickly and easily.
As an adult, it's a huge shock to be orphaned; as a child it's just hideous, ghastly.
I have never met a woman who works who doesn't feel guilty. I mean we all deny it like crazy but deep down there is always that voice saying you should be at home.
My life is European.
I just get so fed up with seeing the same things written about me. If I see the words 'ice queen' attached to me, I feel like banging my head against the wall. There's this perception that I can only be in a film if I have a glass of champagne in my hand and a stately home in the background.
I can't get into all that physical stuff of having to have flawless skin... Sometimes you see people and it looks like someone's got an eraser and made their face a little blurry - their traits seem to go out of focus.
