If you give me a bass guitar and you ask me to improvise something, or even be with some musicians and follow them, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I want to change that.
— Marion Cotillard
Having your picture taken in the street and put in a magazine won't change your life.
There is something strange about me. I don't ever feel at ease in a group of people. I have to fight hard to overcome my fears.
I need to be on the same page as the director.
I would love to go into an animal's dream - like a lion's or a cat's. I'm sure that's pretty awesome.
I don't stick to special techniques, conscious techniques.
I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to work with some directors and some actors I wouldn't have dared to think I would work with one day.
Did a man really walk on the moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered.
I am not very good at expressing myself in a simple way so it can create mis-understandings and I hate that.
I didn't like anything about myself - my looks, my personality. I was very, very angry.
I don't think that I'm that sophisticated. Maybe I'm not aware of it, I don't know.
I don't have a goal.
I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone - you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.
I think in friendship, you want to be there for your friend, and sometimes you just don't know what to do or the relationship you have with them is not clear enough for you to know what to do.
I was born in Paris and raised in the suburbs and then lived in the countryside.
An artist is maybe not always having a normal life.
When you are abandoned by two parents as a baby - wow, that is something to live with.
I always thought that I was a terrible writer. And I started to write songs. And I started to like what I was writing. I think it's a new way for me to express things that are closer to myself than when I play a role because, of course, it's really not me.
I couldn't identify with anyone. At school, I was considered very strange. I didn't understand the relationships between people.
As an actress, I always wanted to do movies, and I never dreamt about doing movies in America just because I didn't think it was possible.
I don't have a favorite process. My favorite process is the right process for the person I am working with. I can fit in any process as long as the director respects who I am and doesn't try to put me in a situation to get something out of me - if I can give it without that situation.
I think that emotion and good stories can cross the times.
When a script moves me, I find that I immediately understand a character. Of course not completely, but I do understand.
I don't live with my role, I'm a really normal person.
You can't work all your life.
I was shy. I was more than shy.
My dad was a mime and then he had his company and created plays for children and was very successful with it.
I'm always very scared when I start a movie because I never know if I'm going to be able to do a good job or do a very bad job.
If I wake up during a dream I can usually go back to sleep and finish the story.
When you see yourself on video, you and your friends spending time on vacation, and they take a video, and then you see it, it's really disturbing.
I think the Earth and everything around it is connected - the sky and the planets and the stars and everything else we see as a mystery.
Respect the place you live, be aware of the impact that you have on things.
I think we're lied to about a number of things.
My parents definitely sparked something in me. I'm sure of it. I saw how happy and fulfilled they were, and I knew I wanted the same job.
It was right after I did Piaf, 'La Vie en Rose'. I started to take singing lessons and finding where I could go.
I'm able to tell when I'm in a bad place or super-sad and move on. When you're stuck somewhere, you need to change something to shift the energy.
Insecurity is very common among actors. When I started giving interviews and talking to people that I didn't know, it was a nightmare. I've learned how to deal with interviews and insecurity; I've gotten used to it.
I took piano lessons when I was like 5 or 6 but that was a long time ago. I stopped when I was 13.
Every story is different, every movie is different, every director is different.
I've always had a repulsion going in a place where animals are in captivity.
I'm not the kind of person who can do a lot of things at the same time.
I'm not a liar.
If you search and search and stop searching, then ultimately you'll find what you need. It is the experience of living.
I never thought that I would have to play an Indian, well half French, but an Indian woman in my life.
As an actress I just want to tell beautiful stories.
I have busy nights.
You don't really see yourself doing things, of course, but you feel.
It's a paradox to be an actress, living in the city, taking planes all the time, trying to find the right balance in this life, which is not so eco-friendly, and still try to respect the environment.
What I like in this job is you can travel to many places, many imaginations.
You have to find the place where you abandon everything of yourself. Then you can let something else happen.
