Isabelle Huppert Quotes & Sayings

Firstly I did it in this huge theatre in Avignon, then to smaller places, then bigger places. You have to change the volume of the voice, give more or less. The way you have to relate to space makes it like sculpture. — Isabelle Huppert

But on the whole, nothing requires unbearable energy for me, it's just a normal thing. — Isabelle Huppert

But theatre is always a difficult experience. — Isabelle Huppert

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. — Isabelle Huppert

But someone like Claude Chabrol tries to make a connection between the society in which we live and the social reasons which make monsters out of some people. — Isabelle Huppert

There are many different ways of being funny. I'm not sure that there's so many different ways of being dramatic. — Isabelle Huppert

It was sometimes 60 degrees [Celsius], but it's very strange, cinema makes you forget reality most of the time. You are more concerned about your inner feelings, or your work. — Isabelle Huppert

If I seem detached or distant, it's because I think this is a more exact reproduction of life, where you hide as much as you show. When I see a scene in which feelings get loudly exteriorized, I say to myself, 'Well, at least this never happens to me.' I very rarely go through this type of expression. Most of the time things are hidden or at least much more subdued. — Isabelle Huppert

For a long time I have compared cinema to music, I think cinema has a lot to do with the rhythm of music. — Isabelle Huppert

For me, making films is like being on vacation, it's a nice walk. But theatre is like mountaineering. You never know whether you're going to fall off or make it to the top. — Isabelle Huppert

Once you have made the decision to do the film, once you have identified the desire and all the deep and personal, intimate, artistic reasons why you want to do the film, then it's more a matter of how to do things. — Isabelle Huppert

I never wondered whether I should be a stage actress or a movie actress. — Isabelle Huppert

I don't get many good offers. I like to follow the same kind of path I follow in France. If I don't feel the movie is very original or has a good amount of potential, I don't do it. In the films I've done I can feel I'm part of a specific universe, but those sorts of opportunities are quite rare. — Isabelle Huppert

I think that a sense of humor of an actor comes through most of the time. Maybe some actors have less than others, and I have it, I think. It's my nature. — Isabelle Huppert

A film is the reflection of the soul of its creator, — Isabelle Huppert

The choosing of a role is so difficult for me. That's the real challenge: to choose the role, not to do the role. Once you've chosen them, the process is much easier. — Isabelle Huppert

Yes, he wanted me to do Funny Games before, which I didn't want to do because the film was very theoretical - the way people experience violence on screen. There was very little space for fiction, it was more like a sacrifice for the actors than anything else. — Isabelle Huppert

Perhaps Europeans are a bit more skeptic whereas Americans are more believers. — Isabelle Huppert

When you come to do the film, it is not the time to wonder why you do it. It's just how to do it. — Isabelle Huppert

I like to take these unusual characters and then make them as normal as possible, because we all know that the tragedy and the abnormal always hides itself behind the normal. — Isabelle Huppert

I think movies say a lot [about real life], even more than theater. It says a lot about the invisible, that movies are so fascinating. The camera lens is like a microscope that goes beyond the surface. It's like you're exploring a secret, so you explore the director's secret, you explore the actor's secret, and therefore you explore the universe's secrets. — Isabelle Huppert

Before I do a play I say that I hope it's going to be for as short a time as possible but, once you do it, it is a paradoxical pleasure. One evening out of two there are five minutes of a miracle and for those five minutes you want to do it again and again. It's like a drug. — Isabelle Huppert

The Greeks already understood that there was more interest in portraying an unusual character than a usual character - that is the purpose of films and theatre. — Isabelle Huppert

But it wasn't just a technical approach towards the piano, studying the music for this film was also a way of approaching the soul of the film, because the film is really about the soul of Schubert and the soul of Bach. — Isabelle Huppert

I don't know if you ever say to yourself that you want to be an actress. It eventually becomes a social function - you are an actress and you make a living out of it, but at the beginning it's more a matter of how to survive, or how to exist in a certain way. — Isabelle Huppert

For an actress there is no greater gift than having a camera in front of you, listening to the most beautiful music in the world and just being looked at! — Isabelle Huppert

Some roles are easier to choose, some roles are more difficult because they are more daring. Sometimes you have to dare. — Isabelle Huppert

If on paper one would say, "You're gonna spend three weeks in Death Valley," you say, "No, I'm not going to be able to." Very often, very quickly you forget about it. — Isabelle Huppert

My mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything. — Isabelle Huppert

Going through this musical experience really helped us to understand the core of the film. — Isabelle Huppert

One would expect an actress to stand onscreen mostly as a caricature. If she would say, "I'm selling shoes," you would believe her. She says it and it creates this fiction, non-fiction perception of the film. People believe it because she says it. If she said, "I'm a butcher," people would believe it too, I think. — Isabelle Huppert

Acting is a way of living out one's insanity. — Isabelle Huppert

I did a film very quickly, and then a lot of work for television, and then I did stage work. — Isabelle Huppert

Even for the most difficult scenes, and there are difficult scenes in the film, and because Michael Haneke is such a great film-maker - I think a great film-maker is not only being inspired, but how to do it, how to make it as real as possible, knowing that it's not real. — Isabelle Huppert

It really helps you to go through difficult situations by just thinking about it as being a big amount of work which you have to solve how to do. For example, I don't feel very inspired when I act, I just act. That's it. — Isabelle Huppert

I think being an actress is more how to cope with the fact that you can't do anything else than to express a talent. It's a way of being untalented for anything. — Isabelle Huppert

In a very complex way, things have improved in the dramatic field. Before you had the good and the bad and you couldn't mingle them. Now it's more ambiguous. — Isabelle Huppert