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Interview - Oct 2001

Vincent Cassel
by Javier Bardem

JAVIER BARDEM: Hey, Vincent. It's a great pleasure to talk to you.

VINCENT CASSEL: Yeah, me too. When they told me that you were doing the interview, I was glad. As a fellow European actor I've been watching the way things have been going for you. It's very inspiring.

JB: Thank you very much. But this is your interview, not mine. [both laugh] I've never done this before, so I'll try to do my best. So, you're the son of an actor?

VC: Yeah. And you're the son of a director, no?

JB: I'm the son of my mother--my uncle is the director. (laughs) And my grandparents were actors. Did you always have a profound desire to be an actor?

VC: From the age of 13 I wanted to do something onstage--whatever it was. And then at around 17, when I noticed that my studies were going wrong, I decided to go to circus school. So actually, I started out by doing circus in the street. At that point, acting was the next step. By 18 I was onstage doing theater. And I don't know how to do anything else, actually.

JB: It's like me. Sometimes I say, "Thank God I have acting." Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to do anything. You've been writing and directing too, haven't you?

VC: Yes, actually-I made two short movies. And at the exact moment I was getting ready to direct a feature, I began to receive all the best acting roles in France and I couldn't refuse. Because one of my great sources of pride right now is that I do most of my movies with the young guys in Paris; the guys leading the new French wave, or whatever they call it. Right now I feel like it's the most important thing, the birth of a new kind of French cinema, and I feel so much a part of it that sometimes I feel like I can't quit doing this to do something of my own.

JB: I admire when an actor really has the need to express himself in places other than acting, like writing and directing. I think it's the place where all us actors would like to go in order to have some control.

VC: Yeah, we want control. But the only control we get is to say "yes" or "no." I have this feeling that if you do too many movies, after a while you stop caring. I watch people like Gerard Depardieu--who I admire a lot, by the way--he's done so many things that when I see him in movies now, I feel like he doesn't care anymore. Like what he does feels less interesting than what he used to do. That's another thing I want to fight against, meaning that once in a while, I try not to say "yes" to two movies in a row. That way I have the time to go to Brazil and surf, so I can forget about the business and talk with normal people again. Otherwise, you get away from reality. And at the end of the day, we're doing something that is supposed to be reflecting reality. When you lose contact with this, you're finished.

JB: That takes me to the next question. In France, where you are a very well-known actor, can you still be connected to the world that surrounds you? Because in my case, I miss the pleasure of watching people on the street, because nobody behaves the same way when I talk to them. They've changed.

VC: That's one of the reasons why I like to travel to countries like Brazil--you couldn't go there, by the way, because I've seen your picture everywhere in Brazil; it's finished for you. [Bardem laughs] But it's OK in Paris. I live in a neighborhood where people know me [as an actor], but because I've lived there for a while, I've become a regular guy on the street, so I still get a chance to watch real life when I sit at my window or when I go to buy some bread at the corner.

JB: What do you think makes Paris such a special city?

VC: The mixture. For example, when I go to Italy--which I like very much for many reasons--what I miss about Paris is [the diversity]; in Italy they're all Italians. Paris for me is a mixture. There's old Paris with a very heavy culture but, at the same time, the city takes on so many new things and people that I constantly feel it changing.

JB: You have two movies opening in America soon-Le Pacte des Loups [Brotherhood of the Wolf]--with [actress and Cassel's wife] Monica Bellucci, and Birthday Girl with Nicole Kidman. Tell me about those projects.

VC: Brotherhood of the Wolf is a very important movie because it represents something new in the French cinema. This guy [director Christophe Gans] came up with the idea of taking a French legend and making it some kind of really strange, almost Chinese action movie. The result is something that I haven't seen anywhere. And it was a chance to work with Monica, which is always a pleasure for me. The movie was a big hit in France and it's opening in the States next month. You know, one of my dreams would be to make movies in France, in Europe, that could be international--really international, which includes America. But to release a European movie in the U.S. is really hard because the system is closed; maybe Brotherhood of the Wolf can be something like that--we'll see.
And Birthday Girl, the movie with Nicole Kidman, is something that I said yes to because it was with Mathieu [Kassovitz]. At first, I didn't want to do it; I had something else to do. But when they cast Mathieu, I said OK.

JB: Do you think that the French cinema has been affected by Hollywood cinema?

VC: Yeah, but in a way it's because people want to get out of their own country. All the young French directors have been affected by Italian and American cinema from the '80--everybody. I think it's OK to be influenced. It just depends upon the quality of what's influencing you. [both laugh]

JB: Is there any actor in the States or any director that you really want to work with?

VC: I'd love to work with Robert De Niro, or Meryl Streep. It's funny, once Mathieu said to me, "Come on! Go to America, Vincentl Maybe you'll work with Scorsese." And I said, "Mathieu, Scorsese made all of his films with Robert De Niro. Why don't you do that with me? That way, maybe in the future people will dream about us!" We'll see. It doesn't matter where I work as long as I can keep dreaming.