Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy
Julie Delpyis a French-American actress, film director, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter. She studied filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, or acted in more than 30 films, including Europa Europa, Voyager, Three Colors: White, Before Sunrise, An American Werewolf in Paris, Before Sunset, 2 Days in Paris, and Before Midnight. She has been nominated for three César Awards, two Online Film Critics Society Awards, and two Academy Awards. After moving to the United States...
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth21 December 1969
CityParis, France
I definitely didn't fit in perfectly to the school system. I was raised with such freedom of speech and thinking.
And I realized that directing actors is really important because that's what ends up on screen.
The camera can move, you can make the shots, blah blah blah, but as long as the actors are good, you have something.
I've had this opportunity to get some of my financing out of Europe, which has helped tremendously, so I'm not completely dependent on the studio system or on U.S. financing.
The people that are succeeding have often had a mentor of some kind. I think it makes a huge difference.
A lot of new American directors have had mentors who have given them advice. And some of them have had the way paved for them by huge Hollywood directors who saw a younger version of themselves.
I've never had help from anyone, ever. I've never had this great director who saw themselves in me, because I'm a French woman in Hollywood. Who could identify with me as a successful director in Hollywood? Nobody. And the few people who could have been mentors, instead they just stole my ideas.
Maybe I would get the chance to be financed for a small romantic comedy, but a war movie by a 28-year-old woman about Japanese soldiers? No one was going to go for that. It's easy to just steal an idea because it's very safe.
What's funny is that with my comedies I don't believe they're my best screenplays necessarily. They're just the ones that I wrote that I knew I could get financing, you know? I believe my other films could be better, but right now they're not being made. But they will eventually.
I've proven that I'm not a complete failure. Every film has done well. It's like, 'So, okay, when do I get my deal at Warner Bros?'
I learned directing by editing because I saw all the mistakes I had made.
I did a film that I shot in 24 hours that was self-financed for $5,000. It was a feature called Looking For Jimmy that I shot with a bunch of friends. I spent eight months editing because we had 24 hours of footage that made no sense and I learned a lot about directing while editing that film.
People around you that you feel you're close to, are they really wishing you good things, you know?
Some films do portray women in their 40s well, and some other films don't. Some films are written by women, so maybe there's a little more accuracy there.