TAHAR RAHIM

I'm looking for challenges, and as always, what matters is the script, the character and the director.

When you agree to work with a filmmaker, it's important that you accept their world. It's an adventure. I like that. I throw myself into the director's arms, into their universe.

I don't know how to get bored. I need to learn to rest.

Everybody is not completely traumatised by their life.

At the end of the day, I remain a country boy inside.

I sometimes feel that racism is getting worse.

I love fashion as an art; I love fashion as costume, as a character. I don't like dictates and the phoniness of appearance.

I don't want to say, 'I want to be in Hollywood,' like so many actors do, but I know that Hollywood is still making good movies, and I'd like to be part of that someday.

Thanks to 'A Prophet,' I'm known in a lot of countries.

The mud is cold when you're in the north of Scotland!

With 'Eagle of the Ninth,' every shot was extremely planned and organized. The director was like, 'Do this!' And I say, 'How was it?' and he says, 'Good.' It was very odd. I would never know where he was headed, or even if he was shooting me at a close-up or from a distance.

I recall the first time my agent told me to wear clothes specifically chosen for me, I would try and find excuses not to do it.

I've always refused to play terrorists.

We're seeing TV series that are as good as movies were in the '70s and '80s - shows like 'The Wire,' 'The Sopranos' and 'Breaking Bad.'

I knew I'd have to go to Paris eventually, and I didn't want to be the provincial kid who just turns up and says, 'I want to act.'

What is art? Art talks about life; it's subversive.

I simply can't wear an outfit if I don't feel that is right for me.

If I don't love my character, I can't do it.

I'd rather have one good scene in a movie by a great director than a small role in a mediocre movie.

In my town, and especially in my area, there were people from everywhere: Algerians, Senegalese, French people, Asians, all kinds of immigrants and natives, and everyone circulated.

Movies don't have borders.

Some kids go walking in the mountains, but I just went to the cinema. So when I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, even though this wasn't normal for Arab kids or anyone in the town, they were sort of expecting it and were very supportive.

I like films to be pure cinema, but I also like them to provide a snapshot of a family, a society or a character - something that can nourish you as a human being as well as an actor.

I learned to walk on my own legs, to dive so deeply into a role to forget that I'm acting.

We need prisons because there are some hardcore criminals, but I never met a guy who has been in jail that came out with a smile on his face thinking, 'Right, that's it - now I am going to be good!'