(By Prairie Miller)
It's not that easy to imagine yourself sitting down to have a conversation with a legendary diva of movies. But that's just what happened when Catherine Deneuve stopped by to have a most casual and forthright exchange about her latest role voicing a character in French-Iranian filmmaker Marjane Satrapi's coming-of-age animated feature, Persepolis. Deneuve, who voices Marjan's mother in this exquisitely crafted story, had much to relate about being a determined woman of her own mind throughout her life, even when it came to interacting with forceful personalities like Bunuel and Truffaut in her movies; the lack of unfettered personal vision in Hollywood that makes her not want to move there; and the stress of a world that's moving much too fast these days. Oh, and what kind of place is America, that has a thing against smoking.
[Catherine, an avid chain smoker, starts to light up a cigarette].
You know, it would be great if you didn't smoke in here.
CATHERINE DENEUVE: Since when? Since it's forbidden to smoke in America! Hmm, okay...What is this book?
PM: It's Persepolis. Haven't you seen it yet?
CD: Yes, but I have the French edition. And it's bigger.
PM: Wonder why. So did you ever imagine yourself as voicing a character in Persepolis?
CD: No, no way.
PM: Well what did you think about that?
CD; When I first heard about the film, I thought it was a great idea, of course.
PM: What excited you about THIS FILM?
CD: Oh, that it's really moving and unusual. And very political, in a good way.
PM: Have you ever visited Iran?
CD: No. Not yet! And I don't think it's going to be so soon!
CD: I don't want to be in a place where I can't do or say what I want.
PM: Is there anywhere in the world you think you could go, and not be
recognized?
CD: I don't know. But to not be recognized somewhere, that would be very appealing to me! That reminds me when I went to Vietnam for the first time. And it felt like something really special to me. You know, to be walking in the street, and nobody knowing you.
PM: How did you like doing animation?
CD: It was great. You know, it's not like you're doing a squirrel or a duck! So you don't have to do anything bizarre.
PM: What kind of preparation did you have to go through?
CD: None. I don't prepare for films! You just concentrate, that's it. But I think it's fun for an actor, just to play with your voice.
PM: Did you ever think about moving to Hollywood to make movies?
CD: No. Because nothing interesting was ever proposed to me. I think it would have been difficult anyway for me to move to Hollywood. But the propositions have never been interesting enough, or the characters. So I'm not coming to Hollywood if what I'm offered is less interesting than the movies I'm offered in Europe.
PM: What do you see as the difference between Hollywood and European filmmaking?
CD: I think it's a big difference. It's that in America, the producer is almost as important as the director. You know, in the making of the film. And it's an extreme that can be not so good for the film. And I find that a director needs to be completely alone, in having the final cut. And the right to do exactly what he wants, and even fight with the producer. And in the end, in France, the director wins.
So it's very complicated. But I find that the way films are made in America, with all the people writing the script, sometimes it's too conventional. But it can be a mix of both bad and good.
PM: What director among the many legends you've worked under like Truffaut and Bunuel, would you say has influenced you most as an actress?
CD: Actually, it was never about changing my way of thinking about acting. It was about growing. And I started to do films when I was very young. I did learn things very young from Jacques Demi, and later from Bunuel and Truffaut. But I wouldn't say that any of them made me change my mind about anything.
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnoud's Persepolis, based on Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novels, has been nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Feature Film.
The film presents a spunky Iranian heroine and features the voices of three French actresses: Chiara Mastroianni as Marjane, Catherine Deneuve as her mother (and Mastroianni's mother in real life), and Danielle Darrieux as her grandmother (film insiders may recall that Darrieux played Deneuve's mother in The Young Girls of Rochefort)
Persepolis is competing against Ratatouille and Surf's Up.
The 80th annual Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for Feb. 24, but is in danger of being canceled by the writers' strike.