Jean Dujardin

I discovered that silent film is almost an advantage. You just have to think of the feeling for it to show. No lines pollute it. It doesn't take much - a gaze, an eyelash flutter - for the emotion to be vivid.

I can't speak American dog very well. There was a lot of improvisation with Uggie - like when I put the dog on the table or sometimes I follow him, sometimes he follows me. I had a lot of treats in my pocket. We worked with Omar Von Muller, the dog trainer. It was very easy because it was a big movie.

I used to just daydream all the time about being in movies, from the age of, like, four onwards. I would sit down and watch movies with my father and my grandfather, and always pretended that I was in the stories.

I said, 'I'm going to the United States to study with Stella Adler and do movies because nobody here has done it and my passion is films.' But I came here and I didn't speak English, I didn't have a green card, I didn't know I had to have an agent, I couldn't drive, I was dyslexic.