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I grew up watching a lot of French cinema.

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.

I love shooting French films because I don't have to stick with being sophisticated or stuck-up.

Sure, I watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Maybe I've seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.

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.

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 was born in Paris in the mid-1960s, and by the time I was 12 I had started going to the movies by myself. Most of the movies of that period never appealed to me. I didn't like the 'naturalism,' the sad or the 'down-to-earth' characters. What I wanted from film was fantasy, dreams, funny situations, extravagant decor - and beautiful women.

I don't really have anything against the French except that, as an American, I've been bred to despise them with the same zeal as soccer and Renny Harlin films.

I'm very happy in France making movies.

All my life, I have loved and been inspired by French cinema, and as a studio head it has been my pride and joy to have the ability to bring movies to audiences around the world.