Isabelle Huppert Quotes

In a very complex way, things have improved in the dramatic field. Before you had the good and the bad and you couldn't mingle them. Now it's more ambiguous.

I think being an actress is more how to cope with the fact that you can't do anything else than to express a talent. It's a way of being untalented for anything

Acting is a way of living out one's insanity.

I always thought that's the exact metaphor, the perfect metaphor for acting. To go blind, to ignore the danger, and to totally trust.

The Greeks already understood that there was more interest in portraying an unusual character than a usual character - that is the purpose of films and theatre.

For a long time I have compared cinema to music, I think cinema has a lot to do with the rhythm of music.

I like to take these unusual characters and then make them as normal as possible, because we all know that the tragedy and the abnormal always hides itself behind the normal.

For me, making films is like being on vacation, it's a nice walk. But theatre is like mountaineering. You never know whether you're going to fall off or make it to the top.

We all pretend to be very strong, and then in a fraction, you can just break down, at least for me.

A film is the reflection of the soul of its creator.

Sometimes over the years, you know, things come to surface.

By definition, acting is improvisation, even if you follow the lines. You invent what you do, when you do it.

Perhaps Europeans are a bit more skeptic whereas Americans are more believers.

My mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything.

For an actress there is no greater gift than having a camera in front of you, listening to the most beautiful music in the world and just being looked at!

I saw Chekhov a number of times in English, and I thought that it translates very well in English, for some reason, from the Russian to the English.

But someone like Claude Chabrol tries to make a connection between the society in which we live and the social reasons which make monsters out of some people

I was raised and I was going to school in the suburbs of Paris. And so we, I didn't really go to the riots, to the barricade. I was too young, actually. Rather young.

You don't want to cry over yourself, you don't want to have compassion about yourself. It's not the right place.

Going through this musical experience really helped us to understand the core of the film.

The big problem in the world is when people are forced to be in a totally foreign context.

I know some real intellectual people who might laugh, very close friends who might laugh when I'm said to be an intellectual.

When I hear myself, I don't know how I sound.

To be "here and now," in principle, is just for once. And then you have to repeat that.

Am I an intellectual? I don't think so. Less than people sometimes think, I have to say. But more than some others think.

I don't have time, because I still have so many films to see.

Some roles are easier to choose, some roles are more difficult because they are more daring. Sometimes you have to dare.

But on the whole, nothing requires unbearable energy for me, it's just a normal thing.

I did a film very quickly, and then a lot of work for television, and then I did stage work.

But theatre is always a difficult experience.

I never wondered whether I should be a stage actress or a movie actress.

It was sometimes 60 degrees [Celsius], but it's very strange, cinema makes you forget reality most of the time. You are more concerned about your inner feelings, or your work.

If on paper one would say, "You're gonna spend three weeks in Death Valley," you say, "No, I'm not going to be able to." Very often, very quickly you forget about it.

I was the youngest of five, and I think my mother always knew I was meant to be an actress.

I don't think I'm that intellectual.

A script is a very rough material in a way. Whatever questions you might have regarding the script, you might find the beginning of the answers in the book.

Like all school students, I think I did a play in my school. The common things, I would say. Nothing really exceptional.

When you come to do the film, it is not the time to wonder why you do it. It's just how to do it

I think that a sense of humor of an actor comes through most of the time. Maybe some actors have less than others, and I have it, I think. It's my nature.

The choosing of a role is so difficult for me. That's the real challenge: to choose the role, not to do the role. Once you've chosen them, the process is much easier.

Sometimes maybe children also fulfill their parents' secrets desire.

One job is to be an actor, the other job is to be a spectator.

I never had any barriers coming from my family. Just encouragement.

Of course you have to create the conditions of a certain belief. And maybe ignoring something that you don't want to see, at least for the time of the shooting.

There are many different ways of being funny. I'm not sure that there's so many different ways of being dramatic.

Sometimes, an actress maybe knows how to think.