Quotes

Other

What is this - filmmaking? You call that a business? You've no morals. Everybody sleeps with everyone! What is it but a dirty lie. You call that normal? Filthy cinema - you're a plague on the world! You smell of filth! You'll pay for your sins! I despise you!

Dialogue

Julie: Liliane ran off with the stuntman. Joelle: Does Alphonse know? Julie: I had to tell him. Joelle: With the stuntman? I'd drop a guy for a film. I'd never drop a film for a guy!

Dialogue

Alphonse: [after being dumped by his girlfriend] I need money to go to a whorehouse. Ferrand: Come on Alphonse. Go back to your room, re-read the script, learn your lines, then try to sleep. Tomorrow we work. That's what matters. Don't be a fool. You're a very good actor. No one's private life runs smoothly. That only happens in the movies. No traffic jams, no dead periods. Movies go along like trains in the night. And people like you and me are only happy in our work. I'm counting on you.

Dialogue

Ferrand: Tell him the car crash we're shooting tomorrow will be in American night. Julie: What is American night? Ferrand: A night scene shot in daylight with a special filter. Julie: Ah, day for night.

Dialogue

Alexandre: How's your mother? Julie: Very good. I told her we were working together. She sends her love. Alexandre: Marvelous woman! Everyone in Hollywood loved her. Too bad she quit when she did. Julie: But she's still very busy. Alexandre: She hated the way we shoot movies - in bits and pieces! I remember escorting her to the premiere of her first big Hollywood movie. A fantastic evening! When the film ended, she sat there, then turned to me and said: "I did all that? All I remember is the waiting." Julie: It's so true!

Dialogue

Ferrand: Quiet! A full rehearsal. Let's go, Séverine. Séverine: "I don't understand you Alexander! You're - " Alexandre: "Peculiar" Séverine: Oh, yes. Ferrand: It's all right! Take it from the top, right away. Let's go, Séverine. Séverine: "I don't understand you Alexander! You've been peculiar, lately. Walking out on dinner last night! That was an insult to Julie." Damn! I said Julie instead of Pamela. Ferrand: Not to worry. Séverine: I've got an idea! I'll use numbers, the way I do for Fellini! Instead of "I don't understand you Alexander..." I'll say, 22, 83, 16, 72, 5, 3, 18, 9, 14, 7, 9. 17, 10, 10, 4, 18, 69... Ferrand: Impossible, Séverine. In France, we have to say the lines.

Dialogue

Ferrand: She's always around! Joelle: She's Lajoie's wife. Ferrand: She thinks she's a crew member? Joelle: No, she thinks women are after him! She makes his life hell. He's too weak to dump her. We call them "The Sorrow and the Pity"!

Dialogue

Alphonse: Bernard, are women magic? Bernard: Not women, their legs! That's why they wear skirts.

Dialogue

Ferrand: We do the kitchen scene tomorrow. Julie: Can I have my lines? Ferrand: After dinner tonight. Julie: That's not much time! Ferrand: It's not written yet. Read it once and put it under your pillow. In the morning, you'll know it by heart! Julie: Optimist, huh?

Dialogue

Julie: He loves you and wants to marry you. Liliane: He mentioned marriage; I didn't! Just the word gives me the creeps. Anyway, he needs a wife, a mistress, a nanny, a nurse, a sister. I can't play all those roles!

Dialogue

Alphonse: You see, I've made a terrible discovery. You can be desperately in love with someone you despise, whose every gesture, word and thought you detest! Julie: What right have you to say that? Say you made a mistake but never be ashamed of having loved. By despising Liliane, you're merely degrading yourself. Alphonse: Maybe you're right. Anyway, my love affairs have always ended badly. I thought women were magic. Julie: Of course they're not magic. Or men are too. Everyone's magic, and no one is.

Dialogue

Alphonse: Let me ask you, are women magic? Lajoie: No, they're not. Neither are men. If a woman says she's known outstanding men, it means she's slept around.

Dialogue

Alexandre: Actors are so vulnerable! Dr. Michael Nelson: Of course they are. Everyone is afraid of being judged. But actors are always being judged. In your work, and in your life! Alexandre: Yes. We wonder what people think of us, if they love us. It must be the same for all performers. As a child, when Mozart was asked to play, he'd reply: "Gladly, but first say you love me." Dr. Michael Nelson: And in your job, you're always kissing. Alexandre: As you say, yes, we do a lot of kissing. The handshake was invented to show you're unarmed, friendly. We went one better: we show our love.

Dialogue

Joelle: Back to work! You dictate, I'll type. We promised it to Julie tonight. Ferrand: Okay, back to the kitchen. No more guilt or sense of shame. They decide to run away like thieves in the night. Joelle: "Pamela" could actually say that! We must show that she's completely lucid. She loved the son, now she loves the father. That must come across. Ferrand: Yes. Julie explained it very well. Here's her interview in the morning paper: "The girl realizes the boy she married is only a pale reflection to his father." She understood the script! Why? Because her mother was an actress. She knows Hollywood, where many kids try to live up to famous parents. Fairbanks, Barrymore and others.

Dialogue

Bertrand: That's not nice or friendly. Aren't we one big family? Alexandre: So were the people in Greek tragedies!