MELANIE LAURENT

I'm not scared of growing old, I'm just scared of not achieving everything that I want to do.

When you're an artist, there's always a moment in your life when you think you're not inspired and instead of doing things and instead of travel and instead of falling in love, you're just depressed, so you don't move, so you don't change. So you're not inspired.

I'm not a crazy old cat lady!

A good director has to be a captain - he has to work with a lot of people every day.

Holiday? Is like, what? I'm a hyperactive girl, so it may be boring for me to be on the beach doing nothing. I just need to find a place for three weeks and work but sleep in the morning, maybe write a little bit, have a glass of red wine. That's my perfect holiday.

I always choose my movie because of a director and a story and a, a character.

It's so French to be a cat person.

When you make successful movies, everyone on set takes care of you, everybody is so nice and you disconnect from reality.

I think that everything is part of creativity - the more you create, the more you have ideas, and the more you meet people.

I'm in love with love, so I'm always taking risks! I think it's part of love, taking risks.

I'm really confident. I had a perfect childhood. I had perfect parents and grandparents. They just love me, simply. So I have no fears.

I never took any theater lessons. So when I started to do movies, I was 14.

It seems like the more you grow up the more you fear things.

I never practice before, I never work hours on a script. I just choose my characters and trust them, and after that, it's about the director taking your hand.

I think I was, like, maybe frustrated for many years because I didn't try to direct. And since I made my movie I'm just like, 'It's great.'

Every time I play in a movie, I never expect that it'll be huge. I don't like thinking about that, because it's so scary.

I don't really like those sorts of actresses who say, 'I don't want to make that movie,' but they make the movie. They just spend their time not liking being on a set and I just think it's absurd, because we are so lucky to do this job. When you accept to make a movie, just make the movie. And then it's more easy for relationships.

The thing is, making movies as an actress, you learn so many things. Like when you're making a movie with Quentin Tarantino you're just at the best cinema school ever.

I like Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent. I have some great Balenciaga jackets and I'm shoe crazy.

Every time a director calls me and says, 'If you practice a lot in two months, can you be an American?' And I always tell them, 'Well, maybe but I'm French. So it's going to be hard to be someone else.'

France is an old country that needs to wake up.

The perfect life would be to have an amazing part every year and to spend all my free time to just write.

There are a lot of French actresses who just hate me now. I've made enemies.

For me, it was a lot of pressure to make another movie after 'Inglourious Basterds' because I didn't want to do something wrong. I wanted to have a beautiful project for another American movie.

Sometimes you just work, you work, you work, and you have no life, no boyfriend, you have no more friends, no more nothing, you just make movies, and you're tired, and you don't know why. Then everybody says, 'Oh you are so lucky, you are working!' And you're like, 'Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's so great!'