Charlotte Gainsbourg Quotes

Girls can wear jeans, cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots, 'cause it's okay to be a boy, but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading.

You think that being a girl is degrading, but secretly, you'd love to know what it's like, wouldn't you?

There were always questions about my parents; I got so fed up with that.

In France, you're with the crew, and you have lunch with them. It's more like a family.

The more you turn down things, the more difficult it becomes to feel that the next one will be right.

I thought people would ask me really personal questions because I've shown more of myself, but it's a comedy, and people understand that it's a game we play.

I love being a beginner. It can be a terrible feeling because you're ashamed of everything you do, but it's so exciting at the same time.

There's always this thing of wanting to be elsewhere.

I hope one day I will be able to be completely myself. Maybe I'll be wilder.

I wasn't getting the responses I hoped for. You can't protect yourself from other judgments.

I'm desperate to work again. I've often had those periods, but two years was the longest.

I'm a very shy person towards my intimacy and private life.

Everyone gets the feeling that they know you and they know your life, and I felt really embarrassed by that.

I hated seeing myself on screen. I was full of complexes. I hated my face for a very, very long time.

I think it's a legend that Lars von Trier is such a tough person to work with. I really didn't experience any of that. Of course, he's difficult in the sense that what he asks for is difficult. For my part in Antichrist, I suffered a bit. But it was the part - it wasn't him. He wasn't cruel. On the contrary, he was very kind. You know what you're up for when you read the pitch.

When you fight against your own weaknesses, there's something embarrassing about it.

Even moving around onstage seemed very artificial. But at the same time you have to make that effort in order to get back to who you are and even accept not moving, if that's who you are.

I was very well paid for my age, and I could make choices, decide not to do a film for six months and wait until I'd get the right thing. Which made me quite a coward.

I still find it hard to push my own limits. I know where my limits are and that I always have to push myself.

You don't even need the director's judgement. It's too much.

I found it very difficult to explain to someone why you did a film. It's not like having a conversation.

Wanting to do it was much more powerful than the fright.

I felt that people would criticize everything. I was so scared about playing Paris. I was very much aware that the greatest concerts my father and mother had done were there. I was sure people would be very tough.

I like to play roles different from myself so I can hide behind them.

I didn't want to change my personality onstage, but I still had to build some kind of ego to be able to go up there. If not, there's no point.

I was really nervous about people booing, because my mother had gone for a film 20 years earlier and had a terrible time with people booing, whistling, so I knew that in Cannes people can get aggressive.

Letting go of things and not being afraid of being ridiculous or over the top - I think that's the main thing for me to work on.

My father loved me and he wanted to work with me and he didn't care what people would say.

I thought people wouldn't take me seriously if too much acting was involved in the singing. But now I love the idea of mixing everything together.

I used to hate being recognised.

Before I started touring, I worked with someone to help me, even physically, because I was so shy. And you can't be shy going onstage. So I had to push myself in a direction that wasn't myself.

The English was really my mother, it was never me. Being the daughter of my father, I always felt very French.

It's nice that we have all these different films.

It's more than a job. It's very personal, so when you're hurt, you're really hurt inside.

You don't accept your weaknesses the same way that you love the weaknesses of another artist, because when they make mistakes they don't look like weaknesses.

The character is close to me, except that I haven't lived through those situations, so it's not completely me.

It rarely happens that I get to work again with the same director. I had such a wonderful time on Antichrist with Lars von Trier, that I was going to do whatever he proposed me to do. When he sent me the script of Christmas, I just loved it. I think I love anything he writes.

I wish I could just accept that I'm not that good and not be shy about the fact that I'm not that professional.

I went on television and I wouldn't say a word; I feel so stupid when I watch them again.

The problem with me in doing things simply is that I feel I'm not enough. It's all very embarrassing.

I was very attached to my family when my father died. I was 19. I was about to go live with my father right when he died, so it was very intense.

I don't feel that I've accomplished anything. I feel that it'll be better when I won't care as much, but it's so difficult to let go and accept all the wrong notes.

I'd love to be able to write again, but I'm so repetitive. And it was all about fear. Never positive. Just indulgent about my sadness.

Each time I changed, it was as if, on purpose, I didn’t want anyone to know too much about me, which of course now I regret, because I closed myself to everything. But it was my way of dealing with things.

I don't feel I have to share everything.

I think I developed a very closed personality. I didn't really have friends. I changed schools every year.

I think, being an actress, you know that you're getting old. I'm 44. I mean, an agent said when I turned 40, "It won't get better."

I would love to be able to do a film. I would love to be able to focus on what excites me in watching actors.

I have ideas of subjects and atmospheres that I love. I either want to go in a tougher, stronger direction or do the opposite: simple ballads.

With a film you go with the script that's already written. And I've never thought of a project, a film that would come from my own desire. I don't think I can do it. I need someone else's desire to be able to do something. With a record, it is completely different, it's a collaboration with another artist, but I'm willing to go into intimate places with no masks on.