Catherine Deneuve Quotes

1. A woman has to be intelligent, have charm, a sense of humor, and be kind. It's the same qualities I require from a man.


2. Love is suffering. One side always loves more.


3. I get irritated, nervous, very tense or stressed, but never bored.

4. Cinema is still a very young art form with extraordinary techniques and very impressive special effects but sometimes it seems the soul has been taken out of things.

5. Lesbians and gays... they still have to fight, even inside. It's not that simple, even if they seem to be accepted.

6. Opportunities are often things you haven't noticed the first time around.

7. People who know me know I'm strong, but I'm vulnerable.


8. This book was company for me - I wrote these things when I was in hotels, far from where I normally live. I never intended to publish it.


9. It's very difficult for me to speak about being an actor.

10. Directors have to push me. I have to be pushed up. Not all the time, but often.

11. Sometimes it's more difficult to do very simple, low-key films.

12. I don't live that much with the character. I find it hard enough having to spend so many hours with the character during the day.

13. Being a film actor is very different from a theatre actor.

14. You get involved with a character after spending a long time waiting, and this demands a lot of energy and concentration.

15. To wait, for an actor, is not like someone who's waiting to see the doctor. It's not the kind of wait where you get bored.

16. On Belle de Jour, the producer was very protective. It was very hard for me.





17. Truffaut loved actresses, and he was very intense. All the actresses I knew wanted to do a film with him.

18. Mississippi Mermaid was a very special experience because we only had the dialogues for the scenes we were shooting the night before.

19. I wouldn't say no to being in a film with Jude Law. I love English actors.

20. Actors have to be there and do the work, and that's enough.

21. Polanski was very precise. I think he still is.

22. I love to do very long and complicated scenes.

23. That's what I like about film-it can be bizarre, classic, normal, romantic. Cinema is to me the most versatile thing.

24. I always try to keep that feeling of being on the edge. I'm afraid of knowing too well and seeming mechanical.

25. I go to the movies a lot, and I regret when I see some actor that I used to like, to find them offering no more surprises.

26. In America you need a bodyguard to go out.

27. I'm not always the nicest person to meet, because I forget very easily that I'm an actress when I'm not working.

28. I live very normally, I go out with my friends, we go to the movies, I queue, we go to restaurants.

29. I like being famous when it's convenient for me and completely anonymous when it's not.

30. I did important films when I was very young.

31. People expect a lot more from someone they think looks interesting. It's a burden.





32. Being an actress is a very physical thing. If I didn't look the way I looked, I would never have started in films.

33. I have a strong sense of responsibility. I like to be directed, it's true. If I didn't like that, I'd do something else.

34. Being an actor means being an instrument for someone else. I want to give myself completely.

35. A lot of actors don't like to see how they've done every day.

36. When I first see the dailies, I look only at myself, but then you start to see the scene.

37. The story is more important to me than the part.

38. I can be very critical on myself and on other people; I can be very demanding.

39. I admire directors so much, I find them incredible: they manage such a huge number of people of different characters, think of the money involved.

40. I love to not work. I like to travel. I work maybe half the year, no more.

41. I would have liked maybe to be in architecture or painting, something connected to the fine arts.

42. I didn't devote my life to acting. I give a lot to my work, but my life has always been more important.

43. I've always been able to decide what was more important at different points in my life, but I never gave up personal things to work, never.

44. I never hoped that both my children would become actors. I expected them to do something else.

45. You suffer as an actor. It's difficult to be an actor and live a good life, especially today.

46. I like all these little animals that run and eat and hide all the time. I like their faces. They seem to be scared and curious at the same time.

47. I had mice that I kept as pets when I was very young, and I've always liked the way they look. Even rats. I'm not scared of them.

48. Bjork is a very original, interesting person. I like her very much.

49. I have no physical courage, I've asked for a double.

50. I'm not an admirer of action movies. I just think: "Oh my God, it must be so tiring".

51. I think the clothes in Belle de Jour are very important to the style of the film. Even today, it is still timeless.

52. I like some of the early silent films because I love to watch how actors had to play then. What would interest me today is to do a silent film.


53. You can express a lot of things, a lot of action without speaking.

54. It's always difficult to play a scene of physical violence because you're always afraid that you don't know your own strength and might hurt someone.

55. I am frivolous. Then I feel guilty.

56. I don't enjoy. I suffer from enjoying. It's very Christian.

57. People don't know very much about me. They do not know what really goes on in my private life.

58. Marriage is obsolete and a trap.


59. It has been very erotic and provocative for people to wonder about my feelings for women.

60. I have been involved in some films other actresses would not have done.

61. I love vampire stories. That's why I did the movie. Women especially were taken with that movie-even more so when it came out on video.

62. I think anything that has to do with sexuality makes people very interested.

63. Some people fall in love with their co-stars and feel things that they never thought they would feel for them because they are touching.

64. Sex is a big question mark. It is something people will talk about forever.

65. Prostitution happens to you because of troubles you had. In reality no woman would choose to do that.

66. All women who kill or have sexual obsessions or who are prostitutes have trouble with their fathers.

67. Even if a woman is abused a very long time ago, it comes out in her life in a negative way.

68. I cannot imagine having a physical relationship with a woman. I have not done that. But I really love women.

69. There are relatively few role models for young people. We are in a society that is ruled by men.

70. To have a public life, you still have the right to a private life.

71. Even if there are a lot women in films, there are few who are lesbians, that people know about.


72. I'm lucky; people write scripts for me.


73. I was never a dangerous woman. I'm not the prissy blonde woman that could take your husband away.

74. Film is a very young art that is still evolving. Soon, we shall reach a balance between content and technology.

75. Acting is also working with people who invite you into their dreams and trust you with their innermost being.

76. I choose my roles carefully.

77. I don't see any reason for marriage when there is divorce.

78. To work is a noble art.

79. I'm lucky. I'm getting older with some directors who are getting older.

80. A star remains pinned on a wall in the public imagination.

81. Interestingly, people who have come to visit me on set - which I don't like - they're very surprised and say that I'm not the person they know. I'm not available to them, I cannot go off with them, I cannot get involved in their conversations, so they get the impression that they're seeing someone else. I tell them, yes, I do love to see them after a shoot, but during the shoot, I am with the people I work with. They ask, how can I stand being on a set waiting for so long, and that it must be so boring. And I have to explain that to wait, for an actor, is not at all like someone who's waiting to see the doctor. It's not the kind of wait where you get bored. Even if I try to think about something else while I'm waiting, I am living with the film, with the scene. But I do often feel tired during the day, and I'm lucky because I can go to sleep very easily, for even 10 to 15 minutes, even if I'm in costume or under a wig, so I do.

82. Interviews are written by someone else - the journalist makes the decision to add or take things away and I couldn't recognize my voice, or anything of myself in that.

83. What I don't like is close-ups, unless the actor is in the camera with me. I have to feel his presence. If I have to feel the presence of the camera before my partner's, it's very difficult. I love to do very long and complicated scenes. I like to have this impression that we are all working together, where you can see all the technicians and everybody is really doing the same thing at the same time. With close-ups, of course you have the crew there, but most of them are just around and it doesn't involve that many people.

84. (on Gene Kelly) It was mostly an aura about him. For me he was Hollywood. The way I'd imagined it as a child.

85. (on Jean-Louis Trintignant) I adore working with him. He's so generous, he doesn't play only for himself, but for his partner. He's also concerned with everyone on a set. That's why the technicians have great respect and tenderness for him.

86. People have always thought of me as someone who's very classical, when in fact I've led a rather unconventional life.


87. It is very fashionable for good-looking ladies to say how hard it is to be beautiful, but that’s not true. There are times when it depresses and bothers me to see just how easy things are made for a beautiful woman.

88. The thing about a tuxedo is that it is virile and feminine at the same time.

89. It was so beautiful. Such extraordinary colors, classical, and refined and very structured as well. A superb collection.

90. Paris is just special. I don't say that there are no other cities in America or Italy. But everybody wants to show in Paris.

91. This is a place full of seduction and coquetry, rich in eroticism.

92. I felt very proud to be chosen. I really did collaborate on the product, colors, the style of the powder cases.

93. She's a great model. If she's ruining her personal life, that belongs to her. What she does in her private life is very private. I find it unbearable that maybe someone shot her (picture), stole the photos then sold them.

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