Top 35 Anna Karina Quotes

I’m always playing mostly the nice girl or the victim. I think it’s perhaps what directors think about me.

We didn’t have a script, but with Jean-Luc we didn’t really need one. It was like an understanding between us. He would say, ‘Anna, a little bit quicker or a little bit slower.’ That was all. We didn’t do a lot of retakes. With some other actors I know he would do a lot of retakes, but not with me.

Jean-Luc is a person who has a lot of feelings, and he knows that to listen and look at a person is very important. You have to listen when you act.

I think it’s very touching to see young people interested in what we did a long time ago. They don’t say, ‘Well, I saw this old film with you.’ They say: ‘I saw this wonderful film. I really love it.’

I have to tell you that we never had any scripts. Jean-Luc never wrote a script in his life. He would write the dialogue that morning before shooting.

At the time we were all just very young people who wanted to have fun and do pictures in a different way than the old folks did it – make it all more spontaneous and more alive and more natural.

You can always tell a man’s nationality by introducing him to a beautiful girl. An Englishman shakes her hand; a Frenchman kisses her hand; an American asks her for a date; and a Russian wires Moscow for instructions.

‘The Madison’ we three weeks rehearsed in a nightclub. Brasseur and Frey didn’t know how to dance. A choreographer had to teach us how to do the steps.

‘Le Petit Soldat’ was banned in Paris; it wasn’t out in the movie houses. It was forbidden because it was talking about the Algerian war.

We never thought the films would be so famous for so long. We were just happy to do things. It was more bohemian. We knew we were doing something we liked and it was not like everyone else. It was a happy world.

I had some bad times. We got married because, you know, I was pregnant. But then I lost the baby. Ups and downs. And then when ‘Bande a Part’ came along, I was in a really bad shape. I didn’t want to be alive any more.

It was a strange love story from the beginning. I could see Jean-Luc was looking at me all the time, and I was looking at him too, all day long. We were like animals.

I don’t sing any more. I guess I’m getting old.

I left school when I was 14 to go into Danish films. When I was 17, I went to Paris to make my fortune.

I want very much to have a child, now that I have a little security. But I must first find the right father. I think it’s very important for a child’s future that his mother makes a good choice.

Everyone thinks that Jean-Luc is an intellectual. But he’s very a sportive person too. He likes action. He likes people to be physical in their roles. They had to move a lot.

Well, I think life is politics anyway. You can’t ignore it, but you can go very wrong in politics. You can say what you thought 50 years ago, but maybe you’re wrong today.

Suddenly I had a call one day saying they’d like me to come to the office to see Jean-Luc Godard. ‘He is preparing a film called ‘Breathless.’ Jean would like to see you.’ I said yes. I thought he was pretty strange, because at that time nobody was wearing those kind of glasses where you couldn’t see the eyes.

I was in many of Jean-Luc’s movies, but I wasn’t in ‘Le Mepris.’

Obviously when I came I wanted to live in Paris. I wanted to work or… if that didn’t work out… perhaps go away with a troupe of traveling performers – you must remember I was very young.

The very first picture that I did, the director came up to me on the street – I was 14 at the time – and asked me if I would be in a short film that he was doing called ‘Pigen og Skoene,’ which means ‘The Girl with the Shoes,’ which is a funny title but that is how it is.

I went to South Korea once and I saw young people, about 15, they had skipped school to come see ‘Band of Outsiders.’

You know, for a painter, I was an assistant, and then he knew a lot of movie people. So, how do you say in English, I was an extra. I’m in a lot of Danish pictures as an extra.

Godard and I got married because I got pregnant. Then I lost the child and they couldn’t do anything about it. So I went to a kind of, not a crazy house, but a place where you have to relax. I hated it.

I always loved New York.

I am the old story. L’histoire ancienne. But an old story can still be a good story, no?

I think personally that every actress should do a little film. Even a short film. And all directors should act, to know how difficult it is also the other way around.

I made films for soaps and I was the Coca-Cola girl for England. I did a lot popular films, too.

There were a lot of ups and downs in my life. And the downs were, you know, very down. Very low.

Every character is so different, if you put the photos next to each other, you see how different I looked and how different I tried to be. And that’s what I really enjoyed, that I could really be a different character every time.

I did Palmolive and Monsavon, which is two soap films, and you can’t do two at the same time. I was underage, see, so I didn’t really know. I didn’t realize that you’re not supposed to do two soap films at the same time. Because on one side of the Champs-Elysees there was Monsavon, and on the other there was Palmolive.

It could be a little bit sad as a young girl to sit there and wait in front of the telephone that would never ring.

Many other directors, they have lots of scripts and they never rehearse as much, and you never really have time to be a part of it. With Jean-Luc, you always had time to be a part of it. It’s difficult to explain to normal people.

It’s always important to talk about what Jean-Luc did – for him, for me, for everyone.

When a woman does not want something to go on she has to say stop. And she always has the right to change her mind.