One would expect an actress to stand onscreen mostly as a caricature. If she would say, "I'm selling shoes," you would believe her. She says it and it creates this fiction, non-fiction perception of the film. People believe it because she says it. If she said, "I'm a butcher," people would believe it too, I think.

Isabelle Huppert

Categorized in : Thinking Believe Shoes

I always thought that's the exact metaphor, the perfect metaphor for acting. To go blind, to ignore the danger, and to totally trust.

Isabelle Huppert

blind acting perfect

I like to take these unusual characters and then make them as normal as possible, because we all know that the tragedy and the abnormal always hides itself behind the normal.

Isabelle Huppert

abnormal tragedy character

Acting is a way of living out one's insanity.

Isabelle Huppert

acting insanity way

If I seem detached or distant, it's because I think this is a more exact reproduction of life, where you hide as much as you show. When I see a scene in which feelings get loudly exteriorized, I say to myself, 'Well, at least this never happens to me.' I very rarely go through this type of expression. Most of the time things are hidden or at least much more subdued.

Isabelle Huppert

expression feelings thinking

The Greeks already understood that there was more interest in portraying an unusual character than a usual character - that is the purpose of films and theatre.

Isabelle Huppert

theatre greek character

I think movies say a lot [about real life], even more than theater. It says a lot about the invisible, that movies are so fascinating. The camera lens is like a microscope that goes beyond the surface. It's like you're exploring a secret, so you explore the director's secret, you explore the actor's secret, and therefore you explore the universe's secrets.

Isabelle Huppert

real secret thinking

Sometimes over the years, you know, things come to surface.

Isabelle Huppert

surface sometimes years

For a long time I have compared cinema to music, I think cinema has a lot to do with the rhythm of music.

Isabelle Huppert

cinema long thinking

A film is the reflection of the soul of its creator.

Isabelle Huppert

film soul reflection

$We all pretend to be very strong, and then in a fraction, you can... by Isabelle Huppert$

We all pretend to be very strong, and then in a fraction, you can just break down, at least for me.

Isabelle Huppert

breaking-down fractions strong

When you're an actress you are in a very specific position, cerebrally, I would think you know. You are a thinking person but you are in a certain perception of the world between really being conceptual and completely stupid. So you are in between, with a lot of intuition and instinct. And that's not completely being intellectual because I think intuition is more blurred. It comes from intuition. Instinct. More than really reasoning.

Isabelle Huppert

intellectual stupid thinking

Some roles are easier to choose, some roles are more difficult because they are more daring. Sometimes you have to dare.

Isabelle Huppert

easier roles sometimes

For me, making films is like being on vacation, it's a nice walk. But theatre is like mountaineering. You never know whether you're going to fall off or make it to the top.

Isabelle Huppert

vacation nice fall

When I hear myself, I don't know how I sound.

Isabelle Huppert

know-how sound knows

To me acting and doing movies is really strongly about the present time. It's all about when you do it. It's to create this feeling of extreme awareness and concentration. Because it doesn't happen without an extreme concentration, when you are completely immersed and focused on that.

Isabelle Huppert

acting awareness feelings

But it wasn't just a technical approach towards the piano, studying the music for this film was also a way of approaching the soul of the film, because the film is really about the soul of Schubert and the soul of Bach.

Isabelle Huppert

piano soul way

Even for the most difficult scenes, and there are difficult scenes in the film, and because Michael Haneke is such a great film-maker - I think a great film-maker is not only being inspired, but how to do it, how to make it as real as possible, knowing that it's not real.

Isabelle Huppert

knowing real thinking

Sometimes you don't really understand the characters you do. I don't need to. Most of the behavior is obscure and I don't mind that. On the contrary, it's a fuel for me, to find out who the character is. As the spectator is finding out, I find out about the character myself.

Isabelle Huppert

mind sometimes character

What people think improvisation is and non-improvisation is, it's nothing to do with what you like or dislike. It's all about how it happens with certain directors and certain scenes. That's the way it works. It's not something, in general, that you can decide.

Isabelle Huppert

directors people thinking

By definition, acting is improvisation, even if you follow the lines. You invent what you do, when you do it.

Isabelle Huppert

definitions lines acting