Tahar Rahim

When you agree to work with a filmmaker, it's important that you accept their world. It's an adventure. I like that. I throw myself into the director's arms, into their universe.

I'm looking for challenges, and as always, what matters is the script, the character and the director.

Some kids go walking in the mountains, but I just went to the cinema. So when I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, even though this wasn't normal for Arab kids or anyone in the town, they were sort of expecting it and were very supportive.

I knew I'd have to go to Paris eventually, and I didn't want to be the provincial kid who just turns up and says, 'I want to act.'

I don't want to say, 'I want to be in Hollywood,' like so many actors do, but I know that Hollywood is still making good movies, and I'd like to be part of that someday.

Thanks to 'A Prophet,' I'm known in a lot of countries.

I'm an actor, full stop. Not an Arab actor. Not an actor of Algerian origin. Just an actor.

If I don't love my character, I can't do it.

I love fashion as an art; I love fashion as costume, as a character. I don't like dictates and the phoniness of appearance.

What is art? Art talks about life; it's subversive.

Everybody is not completely traumatised by their life.

We need prisons because there are some hardcore criminals, but I never met a guy who has been in jail that came out with a smile on his face thinking, 'Right, that's it - now I am going to be good!'