Leos Carax

When I was 16, I felt very relieved to discover cinema. It was like an island where I could see life and death from another perspective. Every young person should be interested in that island. It's a beautiful place.

I don't think men were meant to be interviewed.

We all get a little tired of being ourselves sometimes. The answer is to reinvent yourself, but how do you do that and what is the cost?

Video is freeing, but also lazier. You have to recreate the love of the moment.

I travel, I read, I write, I have other lives. But when I have a camera, I know that's my country, my island.

I'm not especially interested in actors or their life, double, triple identities and all that.

I feel that cinema is my country. But it's not my business.

There's a real cowardice in the movie business. If you don't meet the right crazy people, you can't do it.

Cinema is a territory. It exists outside of movies. It's a place I live in. It's a way of seeing things, of experiencing life. But making films, that's supposed to be a profession.

I mostly don't submit to talking about my work because I would like another talk about real life.

I changed my name when I was 13. I don't know why but it made sense at the time. I wanted another identity. I wanted to reinvent myself.

When I made my first film, I had hardly ever seen a camera before, and I was a young man when I arrived in Paris from the suburbs. At the time, I didn't talk much. I was very shy, so the bluff served me. I was telling people that I had no money, and that I knew how to make films, but I had no proof.