Julie Delpy Quotations

I'm an adaptable nomad. I love Paris, I've been living in Los Angeles and New York since 1990. I love London, too. My roots are inside of me.

Too many women throw themselves into romance because they're afraid of being single, then start making compromises and losing their identity. I won't do that.

If Woody Allen called me, I'd be there straight away. Who wouldn't? Truly.

I don't want to go to the Bahamas on holiday. I hate islands. I want to go to Brittany, where it's cold and raining, and there's nothing fancy about it.

I was six years old when I saw my first Godard movie, eight when I first experienced Bergman. I wanted to be a director when I was fourteen.

I love acting and I still want to do it, but I've such an instinct for directing, it's something that comes naturally to me. It's why I'm here on this planet.

I've been shooting these video movies, which I'm pretty excited about, but this is my first 35 millimeter feature. I think, because I started in this business so young, at 14, and I worked very early with so many great directors, that I was artistically ready to direct at 18. But because I worked with so many great directors, I wasn't secure enough to do that. Now I just say, "Why not? What's to fear?

I've never made the first move in my whole life - I'm too scared. I couldn't kiss someone first. I'm extremely shy. I'm, like, so shy that actually... it's very painful what I'm going to say, but I don't think I've ever been with someone I really loved, because the people I really cared for, I didn't have, you know, the nerve to go after.

I may move from everywhere and spend two or three years in total isolation. I like being alone a lot. I enjoy that more than anything.

My dad has always been such a great dad, and he's brought so much culture to my life. He dragged me to see every single movie at the cinématheque as a kid. I saw everything from Star Wars to Bergman.

The way I work is that I never let people do an assembly. I don't like it because it shapes the film in a way that I can't really control. To me, editing is making the film and it's a huge process and editors are under-rated.

I'm not going to pursue it the way that actors pursue it which means going to all of the auditions and getting a job and all that stuff, because I don't really need to get a job because I have a job as a writer/director. That's how I make my living mostly now. So I don't need to make a living as an actress.

It's definitely easier for a woman to do a romantic comedy than a war movie. It's assumed a woman doesn't have a sense of what action is.

For Europeans a president having an affair, especially in France, is a joke. No one cares, it would never bring this kind of trouble to a country.

I talk a lot. I express a lot of my feelings verbally.

I avoid confrontation. When I'm on set I never snap at anyone. I don't have a temper.

I always wanted to write a story about a couple coming to that moment in their relationship where either they keep on going or it ends.

I'm comfortable wherever I am, and I can be anywhere and feel comfortable after three weeks. I adapt, and I'm like a chameleon. If a country doesn't have Internet, then I get used to not having the Internet. I could basically live anywhere. I'm a nomad at heart. Nothing is more boring than monotony.

I don't like to be overly directing people either. I tell them what I want and I tell them when it's wrong. I tell them no, that's not what I want. I want it more like this or more like that. I'm pretty direct with everyone, and I treat everyone the same which might be good.

Most of our life is miscommunication, and when you add a language barrier to it, it just becomes total mayhem and confusion. It just adds to it with all of the cultural differences. It could be an American family meeting another American family and you could still have a total clash. With family, it's like visiting another planet.

Basically, editing is done in rehearsal and in the writing process and in the acting, so it's very, very tricky, very, very tricky.

Our society is so much about fidelity being this thing that's sacred, and people are miserable. They're suicidal. It brings more depression than anything else on earth, probably. Sorry to say that, guys.

I think anyone who has had a fight and who's a very good observer of the situation and people's behavior is capable of writing a fight. But you do start thinking about writing during the fights that you have with your partner.

In real life, when you speak with each other you overlap each other, so you can't fake that. Like especially when you have no cut. In a regular film when you want people to overlap you cut it that way. It's mixing and editing.

I love making movies. I love writing. I love acting. I love it, and I feel really blessed to be able to actually make a living with something I love doing.

I'm dreaming about making movies for eight weeks, because it's a luxury. But time is money. That's the reality.

I would assume that there is a greater amount of joy for you in being able to write and help produce your own stuff and make a decent living, but not get rich versus always doing the other stuff that you don't write, and make more money.

It's a typical story: you think of something, it stays in the back of your head for a while, and then you finally do it.

Some people have bigger egos than others. You have to take a lot of abuse, and take it in and not respond, because you don't want conflicts on the movie, you don't want to start screaming at people even when they treat you - even when they're not behaving properly, because you want them to do their job, and keep on doing it.

People think women directors are tough. Truth is, I'm a pussycat and I hate conflict. I just want everyone to be happy on set.

I'm quite neurotic, usually. But when it comes to work, I become extremely focused.

I'm a very direct person and, sometimes, when I want something, I will push it until I get it. But, it's OK. It's not as bad as some people. When I have an idea in my head, I'm pretty stubborn.

Never take no for an answer. It took me 20 years between the time I wrote my first screenplay and the time I actually got money to direct a movie.

I find most films about fashion terrible because they are caricaturish.

Maybe every family is dysfunctional, and that's the only thing in common throughout the world.

I'm a very independent person, I love being alone, writing and doing music and stuff.

My experience is that relationships can be difficult, hard work. I love to be in a relationship.

It's easier for Europeans to give money to a movie that says a blow job is what brought down American democracy.

I think some people, when they get a certain ego, they lose sense of whatever.

People have their faults, but it doesn't prevent you from loving them.

I think I do find humor in disorder, and reality is disorder.

Few years ago, I said something about the Academy being very white male, which is the reality, and I was slashed to pieces by the media.

Feminists is something people hate above all. Nothing worse than being a woman in this [movie] business. I really believe that.

I sometimes wish I were African American because people don't bash them afterward. It's the hardest to be a woman.

Performing is the hardest thing. Even though I've done it for so many years, it's still exposing yourself. You suddenly become extremely vulnerable when you're on camera. You're filmed and you're being observed. It's a bit of a violation each time.

I think it's obsessions that a lot of people share, but they don't dare to talk about openly.

I actually love Scorsese comedies. He's an underrated comedy director. I think his comedies are some of the best comedies ever made.

I didn't really fit with other kids. I had problems in school all my life and problems with authority. But my parents never did drugs or anything. They just believed in freedom in the best sense of the word.

I definitely didn't fit in perfectly to the school system. I was raised with such freedom of speech and thinking.

And I realized that directing actors is really important because that's what ends up on screen.

The camera can move, you can make the shots, blah blah blah, but as long as the actors are good, you have something.

I've had this opportunity to get some of my financing out of Europe, which has helped tremendously, so I'm not completely dependent on the studio system or on U.S. financing.

The people that are succeeding have often had a mentor of some kind. I think it makes a huge difference.

A lot of new American directors have had mentors who have given them advice. And some of them have had the way paved for them by huge Hollywood directors who saw a younger version of themselves.

I've never had help from anyone, ever. I've never had this great director who saw themselves in me, because I'm a French woman in Hollywood. Who could identify with me as a successful director in Hollywood? Nobody. And the few people who could have been mentors, instead they just stole my ideas.

Maybe I would get the chance to be financed for a small romantic comedy, but a war movie by a 28-year-old woman about Japanese soldiers? No one was going to go for that. It's easy to just steal an idea because it's very safe.

What's funny is that with my comedies I don't believe they're my best screenplays necessarily. They're just the ones that I wrote that I knew I could get financing, you know? I believe my other films could be better, but right now they're not being made. But they will eventually.

I've proven that I'm not a complete failure. Every film has done well. It's like, 'So, okay, when do I get my deal at Warner Bros?'

I learned directing by editing because I saw all the mistakes I had made.

I did a film that I shot in 24 hours that was self-financed for $5,000. It was a feature called Looking For Jimmy that I shot with a bunch of friends. I spent eight months editing because we had 24 hours of footage that made no sense and I learned a lot about directing while editing that film.

People around you that you feel you're close to, are they really wishing you good things, you know?

Some films do portray women in their 40s well, and some other films don't. Some films are written by women, so maybe there's a little more accuracy there.

The truth is I don't see a lot of movies. I see the Oscar films. I see the films that are sent to me and a few films throughout the year.

I put my films together in Europe and it kick-starts the financing when I'm attached as an actress. It makes it easier to move forward.

The condition of being an actress can be unbearable.

I have a few other films in my life where I'm not attached and for a long time it was too complicated. Now it's starting to change because other actresses actually want to work with me, which is great.

I went to film school to make films just because you're in control of the story.

We didn’t want to disrupt the creative process. We have the chance to make the films we want because the films are not expensive. It’s very rare to be able to do that. It’s completely pure.

You're never totally sure. I shouldn't say that because you have to pretend you're completely self-secure all the time. But, the truth is, I know what I'm doing. I think I know what I'm doing.

In your thirties, you're much more comfortable with sex. First of all, sex is something you've done more. You know you can have sex just to have sex; you can have sex with friends; you can have sex with people you love; you can have sex with people you don't like, but the sex is good. And you can joke about sex much more.

Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?

You can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such beautiful specific details.

Usually I'm able to imagine something and it comes out as I imagined, more or less.

Men go out with me, we break up and then they get married. And later they call me to thank me for teaching them what love is. That I tought them to care and respect women. (...) I wanna kill them! Why didn't they ask me to marry them? I would've said no, but at least they could have asked.

I was having this awful nightmare that I was 32. And then I woke up and I was 23. So relieved. And then I woke up for real, and I was 32.

Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.

I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?

I don't know any woman in France who doesn't talk to firemen and smile at them, because they're always so sweet, and they're wearing those tight pants. Even my dad looks at their ass when they walk down the street!

When you're an actress, you become this thing in people's hands that people are trying to manipulate. I cannot stand it.

To make what you have in your head, I think that's what directing is.

It's terrifying. Women make their first film, their second film, and then it's like a nightmare, right, to make the third or fourth? I mean, it's almost like men can have three films in a row that don't do that well and keep on going.

Reality and love are almost contradictory for me.

So often in my life I've been with people and shared beautiful moments like travelling or staying up all night and watching the sunrise, and I knew it was a special moment, but something was always wrong. I wished I'd been with someone else. I knew that what I was feeling - exactly what was so important to me - they didn't understand.

Very quickly I realized that directing is a combination of things: It's visual, it's directing the actors, it's telling a story. And people don't always mention this part of directing, but it's also knowing how to really edit something into something that makes sense.

I hate that whole Tarantino thing about beating up women and killing them and chopping up. Just because you have the mind of a 12 year old.

I wasn't born an artist. I was really good in science as a kid. I probably shouldn't have been an artist because I'm much more interested in science. But I was raised by artists. I can't really escape it.

I make these little films. I'm just a working person. I just study people a little bit more. It's more sociological, and it's funny anyway - not that serious. It's not like false humility. I just take it for what it is.

I want to be positive and say: everything I've written will get made eventually.

I love the acting process. What I don't like is what's around it. The auditions and being rejected every other day. The look thing. That you have to lose weight, that you have to do Botox.

I had to trick people into giving me money for my first film. Making a romantic comedy is easier and more expected from a woman than it is to make a drama about a Japanese warrior.

I think it's nice when everyone's happy. I'm that kind of person. But then sometimes you have people that are never happy, which also happened to me a little bit, people that always find ways to complain about everything. But if they're never happy, that's the way they are.

I've directed five films and I've proven that people have made money with my films - many people have made money with my films.

I can't really explain the feeling of acting. It makes you the most insecure you can possibly be.

Maybe I'm a bit of a psycho-but I'd rather be psycho than boring.

My therapist in Paris once told me that being creative is a better form of therapy for me than sitting on his couch.

I like doing sequels. Basically, I think it's a fun thing to follow characters in time. In real time.