Mathieu Amalric

Cannes is a circus, so you have to have fun with it. Everything suddenly becomes funny. And the promotion of a movie - that's where you really need to be a good actor. You need to make journalists believe that what you're saying is just for them and you've never said it before, even when you're talking about the same film over and over again.

Being an actor only came about because Arnaud Desplechin, the guy who did 'Kings and Queen', had this curious idea to think that I could be an actor, but I had never acted before, and I was supposed to direct my own film!

It got to the point where most of my time went toward writing novels. I would still occasionally write short stories, but only when I was commissioned by an editor to write for a themed anthology or special issue.