The Innocence Of Desire
Charlotte Rampling in Köln/Germany 1987
by Andreas Volkert

On Saturday, September 12, 1987 Charlotte Rampling visited the German city of Köln (= Cologne). At 11 AM she did a signing session at the Buchhandlung (bookstore) König, signing copies of the new photobook "Charlotte Rampling - with compliments" by German publisher Schirmer/Mosel.
In the evening she appeared at the opening screening of a retrospective of her work at the Cinemathek Köln in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum/Museum Ludwig. The film that was shown that night was "Max, mon amour" (France 1986) along with excerpts of "The Knack" (GB 1965) and "Georgy Girl" (GB 1966).
After the film Charlotte Rampling came on stage accompanied by Gerd Berghoff, the chairman and one of the founders (in 1967) of the Cinemathek Köln. After a short introductory speech Mr. Berghoff proceeded to interview Charlotte Rampling while the audience was also given the opportunity to ask questions.
This talk went on for about 40 minutes after which Charlotte Rampling signed autographs and then left. Following is a complete transcript of the only known audio recording of the entire event. This interview has never been published in any form, until now.
Charlotte Rampling was absolutely lovely that day. She signed lots of autographs for the fans, was in no hurry to leave and had a kind word for everyone.


(Click on the images to see a larger version)

Gerd Berghoff (Chairman Cinemathek Köln):
OK ... so ... to begin with we have of course officially to welcome you here as the guest of the opening screening of this little season of films. It's the first time that we have a series of films dedicated to an actress. And we decided to do so of course because of the actress and at the same time we found out what a wonderful body of films you've been in, ranging from Visconti through Woody Allen, from Liliana Cavani to Oshima. And now with "Angel Heart", very controversial in this country. The serious critique hates the picture and the public loves it. It's a big business, so you're on the safe side. "Max mon amour" was never released in Germany - as you know. The reasons are various. Most people think it's because of the subject. I know ...
Charlotte Rampling: I know about that!

GB: Yeah ... and I know, because you told me that it's a film that's especially dear to you. You love it very much. And this is why we got it here. Even if it's in English ... or happily because it's in English. But I think it's an outstanding film, It was shown in Cannes [in 1986] and you remember the reactions ...
I do.

The audience was yelling when it was French and it was very favourable when it was not French. So, obviously it's a taboo subject still.
I think it's one of the last taboos actually. There are very few taboos. But ... perhaps one of the last ones and that's why it caused the furor.

Probably. Yes, so ...
For many reasons ...

I wonder what you ... because you said the film was so dear to you ... would you like to say a few words why it is so dear to you or would you just leave it to the audience to ask you why?
Well, I first of all hope that they felt something from the film, because it's a very emotional film ... can you hear me ... can you hear me without that [indicating microphone]? It's a very emotional film, it's a very touching film and it's in a way about the innocence of desire and about the inacceptability of bourgeois society to introduce any difference into its structure. And ... I think that Margret [character played by Charlotte Rampling in "Max mon amour"] needed to put up a barrier. Perhaps she had to do it in a very dramatically original way to be able to perhaps reconnect in a humane way with her husband, who ... he was having an affair, she was having an affair. They were living a very artificial, bourgeois life and I think that she - through Max - discovered a very innocent, true love. And she wanted to communicate that to her husband and I think she ended up doing that.

So, any questions about Max? Referring to the picture of course. Questions! Yeah.
Question from the audience: What's it like to act with a monkey? Is it a very strange feeling?
Do you think it was a real monkey? Well, I hope you did, but he was a little bit more beautiful, his teeth were cleaner and his hair was, too. But it was the same. With the emotional level - whether it's with an animal or with a human being - we're the same species. We come from the same origins. We just have a little less hair. And the chimpanzee is actually 99% as we are. I don't know what that 1% is. Perhaps it's just that he can't talk.
GB: Yeah.

Q: You said this film is in a way attacking bourgeois society, but at the same time - I found - that the whole story is a fairytale, a piece of fiction. And therefore I can't see how you could attack bourgeois society with a fairytale. Or in fact overcome it with a fairytale. There was no ... it was lovely, I enjoyed it, but there was no sense of realism in it. Could you comment on that?
Well, I mean, every film that is ever made and every story that is ever told is interpreted by the sensitivity of hearing, feeling, looking. And I know that Oshima won't say anything about this film, because a person must see it on this level. There are many, many different levels and it is a fairytale. And if you saw it as that, that's lovely and I hope you had a happy time.
GB: Yeah.

Q: Do you think that it is a coincidence that a Japanese film director made this kind of - I would say - strange film?
The original idea came from Serge Silver... no, not the original idea. Serge Silverman, the producer, who produced all the Bunuel pictures was making "Ran" with Kurosawa in Japan and he met with Oshima and said they wanted to do a film together and Oshima did, too. And Oshima ... uh, Serge Silverman asked Oshima if he had any ideas and Oshima didn't have any precise ideas. So, Serge Silverman asked Jean-Claude Carriere if he had an idea. And Jean-Claude Carriere had the ... this idea of Max but just in one page. Just a very simple idea. which he'd had for many years. And he went over to Japan and showed this one page to Oshima and talked to him and Oshima immediately wanted to develop the subject, which he did with Jean-Claude Carriere. He, Oshima, wrote in Japan, Jean-Claude Carriere in France and they communicated and that was how the thing evolved. And I think that ... I don't think that a western director would have treated this story at all like it has been treated by Oshima. I think it is very Japanese. There's a kind of ... there's a kind of dignity and formality about it which is very unique to Japanese.

Q: Is it possible the ape is only a symbol for ...
Absolutely, yes. Yes, very much so.

GB: I was wondering about the remark about the fairytale. I mean you attack bourgeoisie with a fairytale.
But you can attack anything through anything.

I believe you can only attack it through a fairytale. That's what it's trying ...
Yes ...
... that's ... because if you ... if you attack bourgeoisie with a rational argument ...
Yes, it's true ...



... you are already moving into that bourgeoisie, ...
Yes ...

... because, you can only attack it with a fairytale, with a utopian concept. I mean the basic idea, that sounds a little bit ... it's not meant to be poetic, but the basic movement of revolution is closer to a fairytale than to anything else, because you overthrow ... when the people stormed against the Bastille it was like in a fairytale when somebody tries to attack the giant.
Or attack the castle.

Attack the castle. Of course, in reality it's bloodshed. But on the screen, in a picture, you see fairytales. Bloodshed. We've seen that in "The Untouchables". To attack Al Capone, you can use 15 tommy guns and mow down a city. It's a fairytale! That was not the truth. The truth was much more vicious. Anyway, I mean, that's ...
Yes, yes ...

... fairytales. So, ...
And in fact, there's an enormous amount of absolute truths in fairytales. Because they're about the search for the holy grail, they're about truth, they're about man getting through all the obstacles to get to the truth of existence, which is the princess.

And the fairytales were the first ones and the last ones and still are, to break the taboos. And you read the fairytales, every fairytale is just breaking one taboo. After another. This is why it's such a good question whether children should read fairytales.
Yes.

That's a wide field. But let's not talk about fairytales, let's talk about you and the picture. Yeah.
Q: If possible I would like to ask a question that does not refer to this movie. Do you like the idea that your movies, movies that you participate in are not talking the original language in countries like Germany and other countries in Europe?
Do I, do I mind?

Q: Yeah, I mean does it disturb you or do you think that it's the way it should be?
If possible I would always like one print at least perhaps in each capital city of the world, if the film is distributed worldwide, to be in the original. But as my medium is communication to people I'd like as many an amount of people who go to see what I do, cause if not, there is no sense in doing it. So if it needs to be in their language then that's fine. And I think now they take great care with dubbing and they find actors who have the same resonance and tone of voice. So that the tone that I have, which is slightly sort of throaty and grey ... I think they try to find actors that correspond to that voice and it's a very ... there's an enormous amount of progress being done in that. Because some countries never know what the voice of an actor is and you can say that takes so much away from the actor, but it's the only way that they will know the actor. So at least they have that.

GB: Everybody seems to be happy ... when I remember Cannes. That's uh ...
Nobody saying "ERRRRRR!" No? No flashing? No fire?

Q: Well, I'd like to come back to the movie and what was your first thinking when you read the script? Did it just come to your mind that the story is about breaking taboos?
The first thing, which is unusual for me, because I'm not shocked easily, but I was shocked ... the first one. And then reading it through and talking to Oshima, I realized what he wanted to do with it and I realized how he wanted to film it, because the shocking thing was the element of - you could say - bestiality. And I'd say it was about that ... in a way ... perhaps breaking that taboo. Perhaps the one that I have, which seems strange that I did this film, but it's for other reasons, because the film talks about so many things. Because the actual sexuality of the film is non-existent and all-existent, because sexuality is in everything. It's in smoking, in eating, in meeting, in looking, in everything. But that is not ... the ... that is nothing to do with the essence of the film. But my first reading was shocking and I think that this is what is frightening people about this film. And I think it needs a certain ... not an illusion, but you must go to this film just with an open mind and heart and just take what it gives you, or what it doesn't give you. But you musn't feel afraid by the subject, because there's so many things within that subject. But I know that at Cannes for instance it was the sort of the least shocking film perhaps that was at Cannes. And ... wasn't it?

GB: Well, it was not the most shocking.
Well, I mean it was ... you know, we had ... what was that film by Bertrand Blier? "Tenue de soirée". We had, we had, the Marco Ferreri film ...

"I Love You".
"I Love You" and ... on the same day we had "Max" and "I Love You". On the same day! I'm in the one with the monkey!

Q: Did you change your opinion about ... concerning this matter?
Sorry?

Q: While making this film did you change your opinion towards that matter you were just talking about?
While? Oh, me? No, not ...

GB: Were you less shocked after the film?
Oh, no! After ... the second when I met Oshima.

Well, I mean did the film change your attitute. You said when you first read the subject, you were shocked.
Yes, but it was just in reading 'bout something. Because I was all alone in my room reading the screenplay and I thought "My God, where is he gonna go?". I'd seen "Realm Of The Senses" and "Realm Of Passion" and I thought he was gonna do that with the monkey! I thought "My God!" That was all. And then, when I talked to Oshima, it was alright.

Q: But the film didn't change you?
Change me?

Q: Yeah ... in which way?
I'm happily married to a human being!

Q: Do you have any animals at home?
Yes. But I don't eat meat, I'm a vegetarian.

Q: Is it that you like doing shocking films like "The Nightporter" and now "Max" and so on? And in the programme you are marked as femme fatale. You like this mark they give you?
Well, it is they that give it to me. It's the ... and ... I've chosen all my films very carefully. So all choices that I've made, nobody forced me to do and nobody asked ... well, they asked me to do, but I could've said "No." And all the films I've done, I've wanted to do, because I felt very deeply about them, as I do about my work. So nobody's forced me to do anything. And images are created by all you people. You receive what you create in your mind - an idea about this character or an image of somebody. And you either like it or you don't, so it's your choice what label to put on a particular actor.

GB: Of course, I mean it's most astonishing when you have the record of your films. You worked with so - from the outside - difficult people, different people, like Visconti, Cavani, Woody Allen, Allan Parker in a segment, Oshima. Had you ever difficulties working with the director?
No, never.

Never?
No.

Any preferences?
All those ones you mentioned. And in fact ... even Visconti, too. But they're all ... I think what happens is, when I connect with a story ... cause when you start with a story, you know who's directing and then very quickly you meet the director and then perhaps you know who the actors are. Maybe the other actors aren't chosen then, but the first meetings with the director you perhaps know his past, because he's a famous director or perhaps you don't know less, because he's a young, new director. But the connection that ... the electricity that happens is absolutely essential and if it doesn't happen and if I meet somebody who's a blank wall, I know I'm not gonna communicate with that person even though it might be a clever director. I won't work with him, because I know I will not be able to share with him what I want to share, because he's not ready to receive it.

And it was said, I read it, I mean it was said, it was written that the cooperation with your partner, principle actor, was for you always - at least that was quoted - most rewarding but for one exception. Maybe that was a misquote. They said that it was a slight difference for you when you acted together with Robert Mitchum in "Farewell My Lovely". That was quoted to have been a bit more difficult for you compared to others. Is that true or not?
Than the ...? To find Robert Mitchum was ... took more time ... and the role that I did actually took three weeks, I think. And Robert Mitchum is an extraordinarily complex man and it took me a while to connect with him and he was very, very stoned all the time!

At least he remembered the lines!
Oh, yes! I mean he would literally come off the streets from the pubs and he was with Moose Malloy [actor Jack O'Halloran] - the big giant - they were out together all night, every night. And they would literally come in and just walk on the set and he would do his bit.



It tells in the picture. Yeah.
Q: I've seen "Angel Heart" a couple of days ago and in the movie there was a lot of blood dripping out of the picture. And my girlfriend, who was sitting next to me, was really getting sick during the picture.
Yes.

Q: And I'd sort of seen this film in a row with pictures like "Blue Velvet" or "[film title unintelligible]".
Yes.

Q: Or even this comedy, or a film that was supposed to be a comedy called "Something Wild" needed a scene, where this fellow put a knife into his opponent. And there was blood running all over again. And do you think that this violence has to take part in all of those pictures?
No, I'm, I participate ...

Q: I don't like it.
No, I'm tired, I can't, it's one of my ... the things that terrifies me most is violence in life. The participation that I did in "Angel Heart" was done because I'm very fascinated by the occult and voodoo and the psychic world. And this character was an interesting creation even if it's just so short a time. And that's what challenged me. It was so short a time, she had to be ... she had to make the impact very quickly. In the film you talked about her and then you saw her and then she had her heart cut out. But I didn't know how far obviously Alan, Alan Parker was gonna go in the violence. I didn't think it would be that violent. I agree with you, to me it's too violent. You see too much blood, exactly. I've never done a violent film, I never will. Because it's something I absolutely condemn.

Q: You do not call "The Nightporter" a violent film?
Emotionally yes. It was very.

Q: Sadistic.
Sorry?

Q: Sadistic.
Yes. Sadistic. But it's emotionally very violent. Yes.

Q: No actual violence.
Sorry?

Q: No actual violence.
No, you don't see it. But you feel it. And that I accept because it is in every one of us, that. And some explode with it and others contain it, while others kill because of it but that is something which is a very, very powerful emotion, so for an actor it's fascinating to explore.

GB: Now we're ... I'm not so distant from that violence personally, but I mean they're overstepping now.
Yes, very much so, which is terrifying. I mean in Germany just for the few moments that I've been free - I switch on the television always anyway when I'm in a city, because I'm interested in what's going on and all the films that I've seen ... I saw one last night that was absolutely staggering. I don't know what it was but I mean I saw three of them over the last two days. But really violent, I mean, just kill, kill, kill, kill, blood streaming everywhere.

Q: It was the bed programme I think ...
The bed programme? Yeah, the bed time, story time, you know.

Q: Would you then call "Rambo" a bad film?
I haven't seen "Rambo". My kids .. it's, no ... I mean ... I love, you know ... I love big entertainment-type cinema. I haven't seen it, because I think I would get angry with it. My kids have seen it, everyone's seen it, but I'm sure I would get too angry.

GB: Well, the interesting aspect is that now they are trying to build up a sort of defense line on violence. There was, only about a week ago, there was a big press conference in Venice, which Brian de Palma gave on "The Untouchables".
Yes.

And people were asking "Do you have to use that kind of violence?" And I mean I don't know who has seen "The Untouchables" in this audience. But this is really violence. I mean Brian de Palma was never a very touchy person.
Toff. No
.
Both ways. And that picture is really, it's a, I think it's a brilliant film.
But very violent?

Well, "very" would be really slightly undervalued. It's got a gruesome scene in it when Bob de Niro walks in as Al Capone and is making a friendly speech and walks around the table and is smiling and he speaks about espirit d'accord, team, friendship, we all are nice people and I love to play baseball. He has baseball bat in his hand and all of a sudden he stops right where he is ... they're all in fancy evening dress and it's an assembly of crooks and he takes that bat and says ... [demonstrates the way de Niro beats somebody over the head with the baseball bat]
Oh, no!

And you see that for a solid 60 seconds. And the audience ... I saw that with an audience in Italy and then at the press conference - this is why I mention it - at the press conference people were saying "Does that have to be?"
No, surely not.

And he was sitting there and says "Why not?" And everybody was getting hostile. And he said "I'll explain it." And then he build up that defense line and he said "You have to get used to it, because otherwise we're lost." It was a big controversial debate just about that. Cause if we don't ...
Get used? We've had thousands of years trying to get used to it!

Yeah. I thought it was a foolish remark. But he's really trying to build a defense line and so ... Alan Parker did it for other reasons, but not to build a defense line, but I mean we're moving towards it, so ... It's much more than what it used to be.
Much, much more!



But it's no more speculation ...
And it doesn't stop either, because with the Hungerford ... the Rambo-type Hungerford massacre just recently in England ... I mean, I think for two nights they stopped violent films, right? And then tried to forget. People forget, I mean they have so much to enjoy, they forget immediately afterwards. There is no history.

So, back from violence to here.
Q: What do you do when you're not working on a film? Do you play on stage?
I did theatre in London about 20 years ago. I think I may be doing a play next year in Paris. And I also want to, I also want to do cabaret, because that's what I wanted to do first of all. And my father, who was a military man - I got a contract when I was 16 in London - and he said "No". And so it's something where it's ... I need that other expression, which is very through the voice and through body movement. But that will be in the next ... over the next ... it won't be before two years. And I'll probably do a theatre play before then. And films. I have films ... were ... planned for next year. Because I think why I want to do cabaret is because I would like to bring back the intimacy of the audience and the performer and not to have ... it's getting so mega, mega, mega. All video clip, all the time, where the communication of audience and the performer is less and less. Because in the megashows, I mean, Madonna-shows are very well, I know, I appreciate what she was doing, she was a tiny spot somewhere except for a few VIPs, who were very close to her. So, you don't get that feeling of the intimacy. And the energy and the emotion of the performer just can't come across. I mean performing should be this [indicating size of Cinemathek theatre] sort of size, or a bit bigger. People should be sitting and drinking and having fun. And the thing should happen as a happening, as a meeting.

Q: But your last play was 20 years ago?
Yes. But it was amateur. I mean, it was part of my training school with the Royal Court Theatre and I've just been very passionate about films and have refused all stage offers until now.

GB: But your next work will be a film?
Yes. And stage was always a little bit too artificial for me. The truth that can be comminicated through ... you can say that it's the truth element of the camera; that when you're very close to a person truth does show through. And in theatre you have to use technique to throw yourself more and your whole body and your inner world has to be much more exterior.

Q: But in a film you can build up a person very special, because when I've seen your films you always look a bit strange for me and mysterious. And when I'm looking at you like this, you're just a normal woman, who is talking very fast, not as slowly as in the films. And I think when you're acting it's not like this because then [here in reality] you're more close and not so artificial. Do you know what I mean?
Do you think I'm artificial or the actress?

Q: No, in a film you're artificial, because everything is ...
Heightened.

Q: ... yeah ...
Do you think that's artificial?

Q: I think the way you ... it ... something is build up. You as a person are build up very much, because your face is on the screen very big and for a long time and you're looking, just looking for two or three seconds and that looks very strange and you've got a very strange look for me, very mysterious and ... especially in that film yesterday "Chair de l'orchidée" [the film was shown at the Cinemathek Köln a day earlier]. And I think in the scene it's much more difficult to produce this. You might be much closer, but you as a person are much more far away.
Well, I think what you're dealing with when you're acting, you are dealing with your inner world, your subconscious almost. You're dealing with areas that you don't actually know how to control and you let them loose when you're playing. When you're a person just talking, you're in either or not, you're really sort of in control of what you're saying and you're thinking and you're reflecting. And it might be intellectual or not. Whatever. But when you're playing, when I'm playing, I'm using all the ... I'm using my secret world, which I don't know about, but it's inside me and has been since I was born. Like everybody. And that's what I'm using ... I think I don't ... if I've done a scene I wouldn't be able to know what I've done except somebody would tell me, you did that and that, because I'm in another world when I'm playing. I have to lose control. But you have to ... it's a very Kamikaze way of doing it, but that's the way I have to do it. So, preparation is a mental preparation, while when I've connected with a character, when I'm reading about it before I start filming, it's just she lives with me and I get to know her, but in a very, just, you know, waking up and in the bath an image will flash into my mind, I think. And then the actual, the actual person will only come alive on the moment that I'm acting it. And with Oshima it was extraordinary and I loved him for it, because he only wanted one take. He wanted the real take, cause he wanted that one, the first one and when anything went wrong, he would get very, very upset and annoyed if anything went wrong technically, because he said that that is the instance. And what it does, it charges everybody up. You know the cameracrew, everyone is very charged up, because they know they only get one chance, for one take. He never even had any security takes, which is absolutely unique for any director. He just wanted the one take. And he would ... even in his head he was cutting, so sometimes he would just say ... you were doing a scene through and he would say "Stop! Cut!" And you'd sort of almost in the middle of it ... and he didn't even want you to go any further, because he was beginning it from a different angle and he wanted you fresh from that new angle.



Q: How did you rehearse that for the scene in the film?
Just completely technically, just you know, he would place us with the light and we would just sit or ...

Q: Without any emotion?
No. No. He wanted no emotion in the rehearsal. Which was very disconcerting for the smaller roles. I understood and very quickly, which you have to. Understand very quickly. What the director means and wants, because you had no time. He'd start right off and go about the film much in sort of like continuity. "Max" was done fairly in continuity, because it was mainly in studio. And ... but the actors coming in ... the smaller part, were very, very disconcerted, because I mean, they came in, we had a sort of technical rehearsal and then he'd say "Cut!" and then he'd say "Thank you very much! Goodbye!" The actors were like ... and they said "We've come all this way!" and stagger out and say ... because they just had the one chance and they didn't know. And it was fine, they were perfect, but, you know an actor likes to sort of get into it and rehearse. The cameraman said he'd never ever used so little film in his life.

Q: So how long did you shoot the film?
Three months. We had nice long days, because of Max and the woman, who was extraordinary, who was inside Max. She was also the same woman who was inside Christoph Lambert's mother [in the movie "Greystoke"]. Christoph Lambert's mother became my lover! And she was extraordinarily cautious, you know, whether on four or Max standing up. She was a gymnast and so she needed a certain amount of rest and so the days went very long. And sometimes Oshima would get tired, he'd like to drink also sometimes. He'd have a nice, boozy lunch and then say "Finished for the afternoon!" and go off to rest.

Q: So he should make a film with Robert Mitchum!
CR: What?

Q: So he should make a film with Robert Mitchum!
Well, the difference about him, what is great about Oshima, he knows at 10 o'clock before he gets totally out of control and he'd just say "Cut! Finish! Home!"

Q: I have a completely different question. First, it's not flattering, you have a very strong photogenic quality in your face and you did lots of beautiful pictures with very famous fashion photographers. I just saw a beautiful series in some Italian magazine called "Max" or something. And what I want to know, do you still enjoy being photographed or is it just for the money?
No! I'm never paid!

Q: You're never paid?!
Never. It's all ... they say ... with all the magazines I do, because I love the photography and I have a special relationship with all sorts of photographers. But they never pay. So in fact all the "Vogues" and things I do and the "Harper's" it's great for them, because I've got to do the model figure and they can do six pages for nothing. You know, the model they have to pay high prices. But they say, oh, it's promotion ...

Q: So any more inquisitions.
Q: Is acting for you a way to live a part of a character you can't live in real life?
Well, I can explore more deeply those areas and I'm quite happy that I do it through film, not through real life. But in a sense it's quite an exorcism process. You say exorcism process? I mean you can either be captured by and haunted by and destroyed by it, because you go very, very far. And some of the roles that I've played, I have gone very far. And you get very ... when you're acting you are hypersensitive to everything. Your emotional antennae are so stretched for a period of two months that it can send you round the bend, but in another sense it can - if you can retain your inner strength - it can be an extraordinary sort of self analysis.

GB: But did it ever occur to you when you saw what you'd done on the screen in a certain part ... were you sitting there and said "That's me?" I mean, not the actress ... "Is that within me?"
I didn't ... I have ... it's only just now that I can start to look at my pictures.

Q: Why?
You do that! Why? Because it would be like, it's like looking at your dreams. Visually. And dreams are very strange and they have all sorts of symbols and it's a secret world, your dreams. Because it's very intimate to analyse dreams and to hang on to them. But they're very, very vital. You don't dream, you go mad. And people even say, they don't dream. It's not true. You dream and sometimes you remember them. And I can't ... I couldn't bear to see myself being.

Q: So, is it like I heard Paul McCartney some time say "My children, if I'm on TV, they say 'Daddy! Daddy! Come, look, there's Paul McCartney on TV!'" Is it perhaps in your family that your man says "There's Charlotte Rampling, not my wife." Or that your children say "That's Charlotte Rampling and not Mommy or ..."
Yes. When they were little. My youngest son, when he was little, he saw a film where I ... a film I did for television with Roger Moore and John Huston - God rest his soul - and he ... I fainted ... it was rather ... it was a Sherlock Holmes and I was sort of the love of ... the only one love of Sherlock Holmes. And in a scene my son was kidnapped and there was sort of a very melodramatic scene and I fainted: "Aaaaah!" And my son, who was sitting next to me suddenly burst into tears. And he said "Mommy's dead!" And I said "No! I'm here!"



Q: How many scripts do you get offered a year?
Gosh! I don't know! I've never sort of counted.

Q: Is it a huge amount?
Oh, no. Not a huge amount. Not a huge amount. I get a lot of screenplays from young writers, young directors ... who ... some are very interesting, some ... a lot of the problem is that I might get a script from a young director, from somewhere in Europe or ... not so much from America, America is different. But from Europe and it's a good story, he wants to direct, because the cinema d'auteur in France unfortunately is very strong. What happens is the guy that writes the screenplay wants to direct. But he's not a director, he could be a quite a good screenplay writer, but he's not a director. He's never done anything, so I say I can't, I don't know what your world is, what is your fantasy? You have nothing to show for it. Unless he's a very powerful personality and really has a feel ... it's ... I can't ... unless it's something really extraordinary. Because you must have some kind of passionate background in imagery. And some of them just don't have it at all. And directing is the most intricate difficulty in the world and very personal, too.

Q: So, what are your favourite books you like to read?
Books?

Q: Yeah, normal books, crime stories ...
Depends what mood I'm in. I love all literature. I was very much into Japanese literature when I was doing "Max". I like Russian literature, if I'm being in a sort of, the sort of the emotional mood. French. I read all sorts of things. The pleasure I have now is that I didn't read very much as a child. Because I didn't want to be too ... I had other things to do. Now I'm discovering all sorts of authors. Now I have more time, so I can reflect upon them and have a deeper understanding perhaps, I suppose. But all sorts. I mean, I love a good thriller, too, on holiday, so I don't have to think too much. OK
?
GB: Good. No more questions on "Max" and Charlotte? May I thank you very much that you've come here. We've enjoyed the film, so we did those screened before. And we're very proud to have had you here. As I said the first actress to be presented in such a context.
I'm very flattered.

You're ... I don't want to flatter you.
I'm sincerely touched.

No, but ... I'd like to say you're a hell of good actress!
(applause)

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