Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I loved the films of Jean Gabin.
I don't sing any more. I guess I'm getting old.
I've been writing short stories since I was a little girl.
I always wanted to be an actress, ever since I was a little girl.
Because you speak to me in words, and I look at you with feelings.
I am the old story. L'histoire ancienne. But an old story can still be a good story, no?
I made films for soaps and I was the Coca-Cola girl for England. I did a lot popular films, too.
There were a lot of ups and downs in my life. And the downs were, you know, very down. Very low.
It's the beautiful minds of this world that win over beautiful faces. They win hearts by winning minds.
I left school when I was 14 to go into Danish films. When I was 17, I went to Paris to make my fortune.
I'm always playing mostly the nice girl or the victim. I think it's perhaps what directors think about me.
I was lucky enough to meet and marry Jean-Luc who is responsible for any education and culture I have today.
After all, things are what they are. A message is a message, plates are plates, men are men, and life is life.
It could be a little bit sad as a young girl to sit there and wait in front of the telephone that would never ring.
I went to South Korea once and I saw young people, about 15, they had skipped school to come see 'Band of Outsiders.'
Quite simply, I owe everything to Jean-Luc. He taught me everything I know about films, about books, about art, about life.
'Le Petit Soldat' was banned in Paris; it wasn't out in the movie houses. It was forbidden because it was talking about the Algerian war.
I went to Paris when I was 17 and would sit in a cafe called Les Deux Magots, in the Latin Quarter. I spoke English, but not a word of French.
I have to tell you that we never had any scripts. Jean-Luc never wrote a script in his life. He would write the dialogue that morning before shooting.
'The Madison' we three weeks rehearsed in a nightclub. Brasseur and Frey didn't know how to dance. A choreographer had to teach us how to do the steps.
I think personally that every actress should do a little film. Even a short film. And all directors should act, to know how difficult it is also the other way around.
It was a strange love story from the beginning. I could see Jean-Luc was looking at me all the time, and I was looking at him too, all day long. We were like animals.
Well, I think life is politics anyway. You can't ignore it, but you can go very wrong in politics. You can say what you thought 50 years ago, but maybe you're wrong today.
You know, for a painter, I was an assistant, and then he knew a lot of movie people. So, how do you say in English, I was an extra. I'm in a lot of Danish pictures as an extra.
Obviously when I came I wanted to live in Paris. I wanted to work or... if that didn't work out... perhaps go away with a troupe of traveling performers - you must remember I was very young.
At the time we were all just very young people who wanted to have fun and do pictures in a different way than the old folks did it - make it all more spontaneous and more alive and more natural.
The only thing I can recall being allowed to improvise was the little singsong 'I don't know what to do' chant in 'Pierrot Le Fou.' Which I came up with because I literally did not know what to do!
I think it's very touching to see young people interested in what we did a long time ago. They don't say, 'Well, I saw this old film with you.' They say: 'I saw this wonderful film. I really love it.'
Godard and I got married because I got pregnant. Then I lost the child and they couldn't do anything about it. So I went to a kind of, not a crazy house, but a place where you have to relax. I hated it.
We never thought the films would be so famous for so long. We were just happy to do things. It was more bohemian. We knew we were doing something we liked and it was not like everyone else. It was a happy world.
Jean-Luc asked me to play a small part in 'Breathless,' the role of Belmondo's former girlfriend. It was just one scene. I asked him what I had to do and he said, 'You have to take your clothes off,' and I said no.
You can always tell a man's nationality by introducing him to a beautiful girl. An Englishman shakes her hand; a Frenchman kisses her hand; an American asks her for a date; and a Russian wires Moscow for instructions.
I had some bad times. We got married because, you know, I was pregnant. But then I lost the baby. Ups and downs. And then when 'Bande a Part' came along, I was in a really bad shape. I didn't want to be alive any more.
In older Hollywood movies, a character will make an entrance, close a door, light a cigarette, sit down, have a drink. In Jean-Luc's movies, you were doing everything at once, and sometimes you wouldn't shut the door all the way.
Many other directors, they have lots of scripts and they never rehearse as much, and you never really have time to be a part of it. With Jean-Luc, you always had time to be a part of it. It's difficult to explain to normal people.
I had only one pair of white shoes with a very high heel, and they were terrible. They got terribly dirty, because I had no money and I walked all over Paris by foot. I also only had one black dress, which I had to wash every night.
Actors and actresses have done a lot of films with their legs, with their arms, with the whole crew and the camera. Why shouldn't they be as good as a first-assistant director who has made three or four films? They've done it with their body!
I went to see Gerard Philipe and Jean Gabin in pictures. Gerard Philipe spoke beautiful French, while Jean Gabin spoke slang. And after a while I realized that when Gabin said, 'What's up, lady?' it meant the same thing as when Philipe said, 'Good evening, madam.'
The very first picture that I did, the director came up to me on the street - I was 14 at the time - and asked me if I would be in a short film that he was doing called 'Pigen og Skoene,' which means 'The Girl with the Shoes,' which is a funny title but that is how it is.
After a while, Godard was going to do 'A Woman is a Woman' with Sami Frey and another actress in the leading lady part but they couldn't do it and so he had to find somebody else. I was not supposed to play the lead in it in the beginning - I originally had one of the smaller parts.
I think life is politics anyway. You can't ignore it, but you can go very wrong in politics. You can say what you thought 50 years ago, but maybe you're wrong today. It's something very special, politics. I think you'd better be a good person in life every day - it's much more important.
We did not see ourselves as remaking cinema at the time, at least not in my view. Myself and the other actors were not part of the industry; we weren't inside the star system. We were running around, shooting in the streets, hiding behind trees to do our makeup. It was a very simple way of working.
We didn't have a script, but with Jean-Luc we didn't really need one. It was like an understanding between us. He would say, 'Anna, a little bit quicker or a little bit slower.' That was all. We didn't do a lot of retakes. With some other actors I know he would do a lot of retakes, but not with me.
So I called and said, 'Mommy, I'm doing a political film with Jean-Luc Godard. You have to come and sign the contract.' She thought I was lying, so she hung up the phone. But then she came the next day, even though she had never taken an airplane in her life. She came to Paris and she signed my contract.
Suddenly I had a call one day saying they'd like me to come to the office to see Jean-Luc Godard. 'He is preparing a film called 'Breathless.' Jean would like to see you.' I said yes. I thought he was pretty strange, because at that time nobody was wearing those kind of glasses where you couldn't see the eyes.
Jean-Luc Godard saw me in a commercial. He first asked me to play a little part in 'Breathless' of a girl who is taking her clothes off. I said, 'No, I don't want to take my clothes off.' But he called me again for 'Le Petit Soldat.' He said it was a political film, so I didn't have to take my clothes off at all.
I did Palmolive and Monsavon, which is two soap films, and you can't do two at the same time. I was underage, see, so I didn't really know. I didn't realize that you're not supposed to do two soap films at the same time. Because on one side of the Champs-Elysees there was Monsavon, and on the other there was Palmolive.
Jean-Luc didn't like me to say any bad words in real life, and I would always do it on purpose, just for fun. And he would go crazy! Then he had Brigitte Bardot do just that in 'Contempt.' And in that film she also has this line - 'I want red velvet curtains, or nothing at all in the apartment' - which was something I would always say.