Arnaud Desplechin

It's hard work to find your own voice and not to copycat anything.

I think one of the most important American films is 'Jackie Brown,' which is such a humble depiction of humble characters but so powerful. The film was pure depiction of the American poverty of the '90s.

I never rehearse scenes with the whole ensemble, because I need to preserve some surprise. Instead, I work with the cast individually on their characters.

I'm an absolute fan of Angela Bassett. I think she's a great, great actress. In the biopics, she is so moving. She's very rare. It's something that doesn't happen that much, to see an actress inventing a new way of showing 'woman' onscreen, and a new way of being beautiful.

I love some films with very silent characters, people who don't speak, but I wouldn't be able to do that.

I hate this idea in the Cinematheque that you must watch silent movies with no music, like it's a piece of art. It's not true.

There is rap music in all my films. In 'La Vie des Morts,' there is rap music too. It's because I'm French, and when it appeared in 1978, it was so new, it set off my musical imagination.

Each time I'm starting to work on a film, even if I love to settle the plot in the real world, I start to think about the plot as a fairy tale, or a dream, or a nightmare... As if it was the best way to tell the truth about characters or narration, instead of realism.

I remember the first time I read Freud, I was 25 or 30, and I was expecting it to be about the Oedipus complex. But what I actually discovered confirmed my own common experience, that you also had little boys who loved their fathers and little girls who loved their mothers.

I'm a great fan of Woody Allen's movies.

Usually in France we prefer to say bad things about the Nouvelle Vague, but I'm always impressed with its freedom and the fact of not making a film to give your opinion but just as a piece of art, which to me means the Nouvelle Vague.

I guess that in this process of trying to incorporate or to be faithful to the films I admire so much, that's how I start to find my own voice. The admiration I have for filmmakers, this gratitude, perhaps that's my only way to become specific.