No one was jumping up and saying, 'Yeah, let me give you money.' I had never held a camera in my hand - a home video camera, nothing. I had not directed.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I made my first film, I had hardly ever seen a camera before, and I was a young man when I arrived in Paris from the suburbs. At the time, I didn't talk much. I was very shy, so the bluff served me. I was telling people that I had no money, and that I knew how to make films, but I had no proof.
I stumbled into this business, I didn't train for it. I yelled 'Action!' on my first two movies before the camera was turned on.
I certainly never expected to be in front of a camera one day of my life.
There are times when you're working with film people when you have to say, 'If the camera were on you, what you're doing would be perfect'.
Everyone always told me I was fated to be in front of the camera.
As a young person, and I know it's hard to believe that I was shy, but you could take your camera, and it would take you to places: it was like having a friend, like having someone to go out with and look at the world. I would do things with a camera I wouldn't do normally if I was just by myself.
I'm lucky I don't make my living in front of the camera.
I've walked with very famous people down red carpets over to the crowd of thousands of people, and you'll reach out to shake their hand and they've got a camera in their hand. And they don't even get their hand out, because they're recording the whole time.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I would still encourage somebody, if they wanted to make a movie, to just go take a movie camera. That's clearly been shown to work.