Some directors are like it's their... nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.
It’s funny, I started by making fake American movies, The Transporter and stuff like that. I was shooting in France, but everything was in English. But then afterwards, I was looking at real French movies like the Jacques Audiard movies.
I’m stuck somewhere a small island in the middle of the Atlantic where I’m alone. Because in France, they’re like, no, you’re not like us, you’re not a French guy. And in America, they’re like, you’re not like us. I’m really alone in my little thing.
Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right actor to act with.
You always have three movies that you have to reduce into one. You have the screenplay. And then, you do a workshop and you add more scenes. And then, on the day you shoot, there's more action and interaction. It's like a souffle. It has a tendency to just grow and explode, and it's just too long.
French cinema has always been very interesting, and it's still very powerful. I think it goes to show that it's great to still have a cinema that doesn't try to emulate, for example, American cinema.