I care about being formally physically attractive in my life, and I think that I am quite vain about my performance. I'm just not vain about how I look while I give the performance.

I am a feminist.

The twenties are a deceptively challenging-slash-painful time. I'm just glad to be out of that phase.

I'm happier in my thirties. I feel clearer about who I am and less apologetic about it, and more accepting of my limitations and also more aware of the ways in which I'm capable.

You have to come to work from a place of love.

I still have a book club with my friends from when I was 5. That's the privilege of growing up in a place where people want to remain. It's a huge gift.

I've never been interested or particularly good at censoring my experience.

I would be a terrible CIA officer in real life.

Germany's fascinating. It's a really rich landscape to film and dramatise.

I wouldn't say that I'm a naturally political beast.

It's been a great privilege to see how interwoven nations are and how incredibly complex these relationships are. It's so elaborate.

Working gives you this new perspective. You don't take everything too seriously, and you realise that if you don't do too well on a history test, it's not the end of the world.

When somebody asks me who I'm wearing, I always see myself with a BabyBjoern, carrying a little tiny Karl Lagerfeld, like, 'I'm wearing Chanel.'

I do feel like I've gotten younger as I've aged.

It's a very young mistake to assume that life is very serious. I get the joke now.

I think you can become dependent on fame and be as known as you want to be, you know?

I don't want to be an actress. I want to be doing good work that is well written and has good people in it.

I eat in moderation and try not to worry about it.

I try to eat sensibly. I cheat, but for the most part, I eat in a clean way.

I exercise more for mental relaxation than anything else.

It's OK to want to look and feel your best. It's OK to work at being attractive, whatever that means to you. And it's also OK to not expect to be defined by that. It's OK to be powerful in every way: to be big, to take up space. To breathe and thrive.

Oh, I'm full of fear. I care about things; therefore, I have fears. I like to think that I'm brave, which is different. Brave means you're able to admit that you care. If you care, you are vulnerable.

I'm very vain about my performance. I want to give as honest a performance as I can. But I'm not so worried about being regarded as beautiful when I'm playing a character.

For some reason, I have always been interested in the stories of people who are exiled and who are deprived of rights. My main motive to make a film is to keep the society in mind and the hospitality adhered.

I am not at all interested in theories about cinema. I am only interested in images and people and sound. I am really a very simple person.

I'm not rich.

Marguerite Duras was a very good friend of mine and an intellectual hero. She was also a sort of mother figure. Of course she was an influence.

I always thought of Djibouti as a place where human history hasn't really begun yet - or perhaps it's already over. There's something in the landscape that's stronger than human civilisation. There's no agriculture, for example, and there are live volcanoes.

I always thought Vincent Lindon had a sexy body, a body you can trust, a solid body you can lean on.

I don't know - music in film, for me, is not another part of a soundtrack; it is something that also helps to approach a character, to foresee the type of image - you see what I mean - it's like a part of the process.

Making pizza is a great job. All that kneading the dough - everything to do with cooking is wonderful, sensual.

I'm not witty.

When you have countries that have a lot of minerals and diamonds and oil and are in business with companies from all over the world - but these companies don't share, really, their profits - this is called post-post-colonial.

When making a film, if I feel nothing in my body, I can't work. I have to touch. I have to feel. I never stop touching.

Africa is no more this poor continent. It's on the march.

You can spend your whole life in France without ever thinking about the Legion.

What I like is the idea of a group, even if it's just two people - the idea of solitude within a group.

I have very strong relationships with my actors when I'm shooting. When you love an actor's work, you always feel you have to go further, and you make several films together. One film just gives you time to get acquainted.

In Kurosawa's films, the tragedy is that this strong man was crushed by corruption or mistrust at the end.

I'm a very sinister person.

The camera is not your eye, and it's not the eye of the audience. I don't think it's my eye, either. It belongs to the film.

I hate the victimization of women, always.

I think you cannot make films without choosing everything.

Shoes have a meaning.

I'm not a tacky person, I think.

Life is not better and more moral than it was in the '50s. It's just the same.

I've never seen a world where only men were responsible for the violence, and the women were innocent. They go together. Men and women are a violent mixture.

I listen to a lot of different kinds of music.

When I was doing 'Beau Travail,' I listened a lot to Benjamin Britten.

I think a film noir demands a beginning and an end.