Huppert Quotes

I don't care to duplicate the travels that others have taken

WHEN I INTERVIEWED ISABELLE HUPPERT, I mentioned in passing that she has the strongest body of work of any actress in the world. She insisted otherwise, and I insisted back, and she denied it again, and I conceded that maybe, just maybe, Meryl Streep might be tied with her in the magnificent résumé department. To which Huppert said something quite interesting: "You know, it’s more again a symptom—I mean it really tells something about our relationship to cinema in Europe, which is slightly different [than here in the U.S.]. Here it seems like, you reach a certain point, actresses work less. And maybe also we have this idea to make movies more cultural than entertaining, a more existential thing than here. And so together it makes [for] a different relation to our craft."

Drama and comedy are the polite genres, founded on collectively agreed-upon ideas, perceptions and truths. But life, as subjectively experienced, is not like comedy or drama; it is much more disorganized and grand, intimidating and embarrassing. It is much more like opera and farce. Opera shows how we really feel at our most pained or selfish or exultant, and farce reveals how we receive the world in its raw, unsifted form. Or to put it another way, opera is how we really feel about ourselves. Farce is how we really feel about strangers. And both genres tell the true story of life as it is lived. The Piano Teacher, neither comedy nor drama, was both opera and farce, with Huppert as both diva and farceuse. Throughout, Huppert believes and gives passionately, and yet stands back, in full awareness. Life is more than we think, bigger but also ridiculous.

SOME OF THE WOMEN YOU WILL MEET on these pages, you will already know. Some you’ll know by name, and others, including some of the very best, you may never have heard of. Frankly, some of these women have careers that deserve a book-length treatment all their own. I’m thinking, in particular, of Nathalie Baye, Sandrine Bonnaire, Isabelle Huppert, Agnès Jaoui, Sandrine Kiberlain, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Karin Viard. In any case, over the course of this book, you will come to know their best work and that of their colleagues. It is a striking thing, the sheer vastness of the working talent, a roster that includes but is hardly limited to names such as Isabelle Adjani, Fanny Ardant, Josiane Balasko, Emmanuelle Béart, Leïla Bekhti, Monica Bellucci, Juliette Binoche, Élodie Bouchez, Isabelle Carré, Amira Casar, Marion Cotillard, Marie-Josée Croze, Emmanuelle Devos, Marina Foïs, Sara Forestier, Cécile de France, Catherine Frot, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Julie Gayet, Marie Gillain, Marina Hands, Mélanie Laurent, Virginie Ledoyen, Valérie Lemercier, Sophie Marceau, Chiara Mastroianni, Anna Mouglalis, Géraldine Pailhas, Charlotte Rampling, Natacha Régnier, Brigitte Roüan, Ludivine Sagnier, Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathilde Seigner, Audrey Tautou, Sylvie Testud, Kristin Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein. Some of these women are renowned for their beauty (Béart, Bellucci, Binoche, Marceau). But many others are beautiful in ways that elude analysis. They are warm or electric or magnetic or so idiosyncratic that your eyes immediately go to them. They are beautiful like the actresses of an earlier Hollywood generation, like Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert or Olivia de Havilland. In the 1930s, Busby Berkeley’s chorus lines were filled with women who were prettier, and yet these ladies became objects of cinematic fantasy. Obviously, they had some requisite base level of good looks, but what pushed them into the realm of beauty was something else, something inside them, something to do with their essential being. And yet . . . what happens if a culture or an industry isn’t interested in a woman’s essential being? Stanwyck and her exalted colleagues would have been nothing in such an environment, just as many American actresses today are going through entire careers without ever showing what’s inside of them.

I really admire people who don’t need to live surrounded by lots of stuff. My bedroom is piled up with clothes and books, papers and photographs. I like to collect things, anything I can grab from wherever I’m travelling. I think it’s the sign of slight anxiety to always want something around you to represent a good moment you had, to hang on to the leftovers. But then they’re a pleasure to look at too, so it’s not all negative.

Life starts with play. So, how does innocent playing become intentional? Hard to describe. You don't wake up one day and say, I want to be an actress. You always were. Always, you ran after lost time and childhood., which is playtime.

Mi condusse nella galleria degli specchi deformanti. "Si tratta di un'immagine vera? No. Adesso si guardi e mi dica cosa le piace del suo aspetto fisico. Faccia di tutto per mettere in risalto questi punti di forza. Ma la cosa più importante è ciò che lei sprigiona da dentro. La fiducia in sè stessi è il principale punto di forza. Sia felice e sarà irresistibile! Si sazi di bellezza e sarà attraente. La smetta di nutrire i suoi ratti, Camille. I "ratti" son ole paure, i complessi, le convinzioni sbagliate, la parte di lei che ama farsi compatire e recitare la parte di Calimero. Riesce a capire cosa sta cercando, inconsciamente, quando interpreta questo brutto ruolo?" "Forse se sono brutta non attiro troppo l'attenzione e non rischio di deludere qualcuno o di restare delusa! E se le persone non si aspettano troppo da me, almeno vivo in pace!" "E qual è invece l'insidia insita nell'attirare gli sguardi?" "Più sguardi significa più commenti, più giudizi, più rischi di essere ferita..." "Salvo che nessuno potrà colpirla se è invulnerabile e ha fiducia in sè stessa. Per prima cosa, tutte le mattine, davanti allo specchio, cambierà dialogo interiore. Ripeterà affermazioni positive. Poi imparerà l'arte della modellizzazione. Qual è la donna che ammira di più e perchè?" "Isabelle Huppert, trovo che abbia un fascino incredibile". "Benissimo. Allora si metta a studiare Isabelle Huppert, i suoi atteggiamenti, il suo modo di camminare, di sorridere... Si alleni a riprodurre i suoi gesti. Finga di essere Isabelle Huppert che cammina per strada. Come reagiscono le persone intorno a lei?

I don’t know if my eyes are open or closed. Did I dream of Cimino, New York, the Statue of Liberty? Did I really see those films where the deer were offering me their heads? And Tot, Anouk, Pointel, Isabelle Huppert—do they really exist?