Quotes from Vincent Cassel

I think it's much harder to have a long dialogue scene than an action scene. An action scene is long, but it's not really hard. It's kind of boring, really. It looks good at the end, but to shoot it, it's not the most exciting thing.

When eventually I started to act a bit more, I realised that circus school had taught me something that a lot of actors my age didn't have: physicality. They didn't know how to move. Acting is not all about talking. There is something animalistic about it.

I'm more attracted to the bad guys. Why? Because in real life, I don't know any good guys. I know okay guys. I know polite guys. I know people who can control themselves.

As an actor, I think you should always disappear a little. I act in order to lose myself.

I'm a little angry in life.

I was much more interested by clothes when I was younger. I'm about being discreet. What they call the French touch, whatever that means. Low profile and somehow elegant without being flashy.

I work everywhere. If there is a nice adventure in South Korea, for example, why not? Russia, Brazil, whatever. I'm ready for almost anything.

I have a tendency to think that when you portray baddies in movies, they come out more human than good guys.

I worked with young directors all my life, only young directors.

I was thinking of going to London drama schools or to New York, because France didn't accommodate the things I wanted to do in film.

My father danced a lot. He was called 'the French Fred Astaire.'

French people are never happy with what they have. They're always complaining. They're happy when they're complaining.

I grew up watching 'Raging Bull.'

I think American audiences like gangster movies. You know, it's part of the culture.

What I think I'm perceived as in France is, like, I'm this leading man always doing strange movies because most of the movies I did, like 'Irreversible' or 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' and a bunch of others, and even in France, they always come out as a particular movie, not like the typical French kind of movies that people know most of the time.

'Brotherhood of the Wolf' is a very important movie because it represents something new. The 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 before.

They say the day you lose your parents, you start to look like them.

I think life is short, and you can't spend time doing things just to be on set to reassure yourself that people are not going to forget about you.

Female influence came from my grandmother and my aunt. They would sing Corsican love songs while cleaning the house and dress all in black and say melodramatic things like: 'I want to die.'

If most women are looking for security, I think men look for adventure.

I think people have a misinterpretation of Method acting, because Method acting is a wonderful thing. The thing is, if you take it too seriously, it's like religion. You start to think it's the truth. But it's not the truth. It's just a way to get somewhere.

I ran away from three different boarding schools before joining a circus school, and eventually I became an actor. The only thing I learned at boarding school was never to send my child to one.

I wear a lot of wigs as Jacques Mesrine. He'd wear multiple wigs and take them off one at a time to rob three banks in one hour.

The minute I started being recognised, I became much more discreet.