Quotes

The day after I had my licence to drive I made Paris/Nice at 230 km/hour.

I think I'm actually more vulnerable than people imagine.

[on Irreversible (2002)] Yeah, I think that there is something saying, I say the line, that revenge is a human right. I don't think that it's a human right, but it's a normal reaction.

[on press interest in his marriage with Monica Bellucci] Oh, well you know, all European media is not the same. I'm sure that like in England, they can be much more bothering than in France, for example. In Paris, it's okay. We have very separate lives when we're working, working wise. I think that it's fine.

I'm a little angry in life.

[asked what he would do if the world was to end in five minutes] Until today I would have said, "Get into a plane and jump out with a parachute". Now that I've done it, I would say, "make love for the last time hoping that it is my wife who is at my side."

[on his wife, Monica Bellucci] Her best asset of actress - and woman too! - is not her beauty, but her intelligence. Her intelligence of people and of things. She is very perspicacious, very attentive with the others and has a great faculty to put them at ease. To work with her, I would say, to put besides any concept of couple, that it is as when I find Mathieu [Mathieu Kassovitz]: together, one goes more directly to essence. Plus, she is an incredible hard worker. She has a curiosity of cinema which is rare. She is moved by the directors, she is very listening . . . In general, I recognize it, I am interested more in the actors than in the actresses - is already well to recognize it! But her, she has something that few actresses have. A manner of exceeding reality, of making dream. I like to look at her playing...

My father is best known for his light comedies, and I'm best known for crazy bad guys with short tempers.

I love playing baddies.

[on playing villainous characters, notably Jacques Mesrine] People pretend to be nice, people pretend to be smooth, and polite and everything, but this is only an appearance because the way we're built as human beings is only in paradox and contradictions. So I guess, you know, when I read so-called baddies, I think they're more human than heroes most of the time.

The minute your parents die, you stop fighting them. I realized the more I changed my face for films, the more I looked like him. I always liked to disguise myself because I was trying to run away from his image. But all that is not worth it. You can't escape from what you are.

I feel like the so-called bad guys are never totally bad. I guess it's the closest thing I can do to reality: people act nice but nobody really is nice. We all have to balance that with something dark. How we balance it is what makes something interesting... My character in "La Haine," he's not bad, he's unhappy and usually people are like that. Most of us are angry. [breaks off, then laughs] Maybe one day I'll play Buddha.

[on Irreversible (2002)] I knew we were taking part in something that wasn't for everyone. It was really strong and powerful. When we went to show it at Cannes, I was scared and excited like a terrorist who had put a bomb in a church.