You speak English quite well, I think.
Yeah, but I can’t play someone from New Jersey. The best I can hope for is to be a foreigner in an American movie. We’ll see.
Over the past year, female directors have received top prizes at many major film festivals, including Cannes, Venice and Berlin. Do you think this will inform your jury’s final decision?
I don’t go to a movie with preconceived ideas. I have to work with my heart, not my brain [thinking]: “This director is a woman, this director is a man, this one is talking about something very important socially in the world today.” It’s impossible, because if you do that, you’re not at the cinema. After [we decide the winner], if it’s a woman with a social film, so much the better. I’ll try not to think about it, because if you do, you’re not free. I am a free man. My freedom has a price, but it is priceless.
What do you mean?
I am an actor. I have never advertised. No cartoon voice. I have no manager, no publicist. I have no social network – no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok. I have no house, apartment or property. So I can say what I want, when I want, to whom I want. My father always told me, be free. In Michael Mann’s film “Heat”, Robert De Niro says that you have to be able to leave everything behind in 30 seconds – he says this to Val Kilmer, like a real gangster. If I want, I can do it. Except I have kids.
Which is more important than all the other things you named.
Yes. But I try to think like that.
The people who predict the winner of the Palme often take into account the sensitivity of the president of the jury. So, which movies do you like the most?
I love Godard, I love James Gray [who has a film in competition, “Armageddon Time”], I love Lars von Trier. I like a lot of very powerful intellectual films, but let me tell you, I can die to see “Taken” 45 times. I’m crazy about “The Equalizer”. I’m in love with Tom Cruise, I love Mark Wahlberg, I see all those movies. You can’t say a single bad word about Sylvester Stallone, or I’ll go crazy! I want to tell you, I like what I like. I have no gender.
