Two Days In Paris is in cinemas this week, and to celebrate D+CFilm has an interview with director and star Julie Delpy for your delectation. We’ve decided to run it in two parts, if that’s okay with you. Tune in tomorrow to read part two. Click here to watch the trailer.

Adam Goldberg’s character, Jack, is very neurotic, and you wrote the part with him in mind. Does that mean he’s a little bit like that?

Julie Delpy: Adam is a little bit of a neurotic but nowhere near as neurotic as I am! Jack’s neuroses are closer to mine than my character is to my personality. Marion is pretty fearless and is not scared of life, while I’m scared of everything! So in many ways I’m closer to Jack, which is kind of embarrassing to admit!

So did you know Adam personally?

I’d seen his work and I knew him as a person for about 10 years, so that was useful. The combination of knowing someone and knowing their work is that you can see things in them that maybe they haven’t yet put on screen. I don’t think that Adam has been given enough of a chance to show what he can do — he always seems to play the best friend or something and he’s not been given much of a chance.

The idea of Adam ‘owning’ his girlfriend is central to the story. Do you think that’s a particularly male trait?

I think it’s transgender but I like that he uses the excuse of being American to talk about his girlfriend as property. Because I think that’s bullshit — everyone has the quality to be really jealous in that manner. I have experienced so much in that way. I’m not jealous at all, but I’ve seen jealous men and I saw how that could inspire me, but I’ve also seen plenty of jealous women and that’s even uglier. I couldn’t even show that in the film. I find the idea of jealous women very disturbing. There’s something very catty and nasty — those kinds of women tend to hate other women, and they’re people I don’t want to be around. I have a few girlfriends who are jealous, but for me it’s tacky.

As you show with Adam, men being jealous makes them insular, but often with women they become very aggressive. Is that true, do you think?

Absolutely. It terrifies me — maybe I’ve been the victim of jealous women. Actually, I remember once in Argentina. I love the country, but I recall I was the only blonde in this small town, the paper had reported that I was there as this European actress and when I’d walk down the street all these 60-year-old women would be there with their husbands, and maybe some of the older men would stare at me. And then their wives would go nuts, shouting things at me, and one even pulled my hair. I guess it might be part of the culture there, where other women are devils. But the funny thing was that it wasn’t young women — they were like 60. I’m scared of women’s jealousy, so it’s much more appealing in men. Far sweeter. That’s why the man is jealous, not the woman.

You must have felt jealousy at some point in your life?

Of course, and that’s why I’m scared of it!

All writing is autobiographical to some degree so are there any specifics in this film that are drawn from your own life?

There are a few moments, but a lot of it is my own imagination and paranoia — worrying about bringing my boyfriend to Paris and imagining what could go wrong. Most of what happens is based on that, but there are lots of little incidents, like the racist taxi drivers in Paris, which is not an experience I’ve had just once but often. And anyone you speak to in Paris has had that experience, so it’s not just specific to me.

But there are some very nuanced and individual moments…

It is sad and wonderful that when you are a writer you’ll find yourself in the middle of a break up, having a blazing row, and then you’ll think, ‘Oooh, that’d make a good line…’.  And the worst thing is that you never stop thinking. That’s why I always say that you should never tell a story to a writer because he or she will make it their own. And I’ve done that myself at times, said things and then seen them in a movie. So you do have be careful. And it’s kind of stressful being a writer in that way. I also do it, with friends’ ideas and thoughts, although I think that they like it as I use the material in a friendly way.

So you don’t consider borrowing other people’s ideas as stealing? It’s just part of being a writer?

No, because I hear people talking on the subway, and it’s part of the writer’s job, to always be listening. And I can be inspired by pieces in the newspaper.

Well, you refer to that with photography and the Last Tango In Paris sequence in the film, that being a photographer doesn’t allow you to live the moment. Is that how you feel as a writer?

It is a bit like that. I am able to leave it alone at times, but in the good moments, and when it’s over dramatic or exciting, I tend to report. It’s a kind of training, learning to observe, and that’s what I do with the photography in the film. And that’s what I do with the break-up at the end, by narrating it like a writer I put distance between my character and her situation. That was an important way for me to end the film, for her to detach herself from the pain of the relationship.

Throughout the film, you return to certain thoughts and ideas. Is that idea of repetition important to you as writer and director?

Yes, and when she talks about the Small World Theory, it doesn’t seem particularly important but for me it’s worth bringing that up and investing time in it so that we can have that fight at the end by the canal and say that there is a Small World Theory but it only applies to her love life! To me that was so worth it — I love linking things throughout the film, like starting with the American tourists and then returning to them at the end. That’s important for the structure of a comedy. Things resonate. It’s funny to send American tourists into the suburbs, but even funnier when you seem all ruffled and mugged!

And the fact they’re fans of the The Da Vinci Code makes it all the
more enjoyable…

I agree! But it’s more that popular culture overtakes real culture. People will visit the Louvre because of that book, not because of the real reasons they should visit! But you are right — the grammar and the language in that book horrified me!

Posted by Thin White Duke

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 11:30 am and is filed under National, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.