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I've often gone to start a film only to find the producers surprised to discover that I'm American.

I'm a European, and I live there. I work in European films, and then once in a while, I make an American movie.

Why does there exist a global American entertainment industry, but there isn't an equivalent coming from France or Italy? This is the case simply because the English language opens the whole world to the American cinema.

When you do a film in a foreign language, you know there's a cost in it, that you know, unfortunately, the audiences of foreign language films have not been cultivated. There's a market, but the market has been reduced, unfortunately, and you know that when you're making a foreign language film, you're making a choice.

When I started acting, there were parts in English that I thought I just had to try it out and go to another country. I did a film in Ireland. It was my first film abroad.

I remember when I got my first opportunity to work in America, I didn't speak a lot of English, so I only really knew my lines for the movie I was doing.

There's an abundance of exposure when you start working in American films. Inevitably you become a brand and that has to be controlled.

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.

When I was in the U.S. for 'Swimming Pool,' people had asked me, 'So are you going to settle down in Hollywood?' And I said, 'No, I'm French! I am living in France. I am not going to be American.'

I make American films for American audiences and Asian films for Asian audiences.